Oracle Vet to Lead Salesforce.com Japan

The connection between Oracle Corp. and Salesforce.com keeps getting stronger. Salesforce.com Monday said that former Oracle executive Akira Kitamura has joined the San Francisco-based CRM company as president of Salesforce.com Japan. Kitamura, who reports directly to Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff, is responsible for the company's operations based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has more than 200 customers in that region and in March introduced a Japanese language version its CRM offering. Prior to joining Salesforce.com, Kitamura was Chief Executive of Centura Software, a provider of Siebel consulting in Japan. He also held senior management positions at Oracle and IBM and Hitachi's Computer Division. Benioff, a former Oracle executive who started Salesforce.com in 1999, says that as one of the first members of the management of Oracle Japan, Kitamura's experience working for multinational companies is expected to be "invaluable to our Japanese customers and our large, global accounts with a presence in Japan." Kitamura joins a handful of other former Oracle executives on Salesforce.com senior management team. John Appleby, Salesforce.com's senior vice president and managing director EMEA was managing director of Oracle Ireland. Phil Barker, Salesforce.com's senior vice president of global services spent nine years at Oracle where he served in a number of roles including regional vice president. And Jim Cavalieri, Salesforce.com's chief information officer was at Oracle for five years in a variety of technical and management roles at both Oracle Consulting and Oracle Development. In addition, Oracle Chairman and Chief Executive Larry Ellison sits on Salesforce.com's board of directors.