If you have been a banker for 40 years, how easy can it be to head a Cloud company? "As a banker I was used to getting things literally on a platter, but here I am doing things on my own — right down to fixing my own computer!" says Arundhati Bhattacharya, who took over as the India CEO of Salesforce, the $21-billion global SaaS giant, at the peak of the pandemic. It was not an easy transition for Bhattacharya, who retired in 2017 as the chairperson of SBI. While finance and technology may seem chalk and cheese, for Bhattacharya technology was always going to be the future. Not surprising that she is enjoying her role at Salesforce of evangelising the need for Cloud. "I recently held a session with bankers on the need for Cloud but they seemed so sceptical." The universe of Indian SMEs is more than four-times bigger than the West in terms of numbers, and Bhattacharya sees huge potential. "We are building a market that is the future and cannot be ignored," she says. Bhattacharya has begun on a winning note with revenue growth coming in at 23% last year for Salesforce in India. — V. Keshavdev