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On May 15, 2024, at the Accounting Awards Banquet in the Locatelli Center, Joe Allanson, BSC '85, received the 2024 Alumnus of the Year Award.  Joe is a 20+ year veteran of Salesforce, which is headquartered in San Francisco. He joined the company when there were only 380 employees (today, over 73,000). Revenues in his first year were $176 million, today $35 billion annually. At Salesforce, Joe served as their chief accounting officer and controller for 14 years. For the past 2 1/2 years, he is the company's finance executive responsible for its ESG reporting practices and the integration of ESG and finance within the organization.

Joe also serves as a member of the board of trustees of our sister Jesuit school, the University of San Francisco and the board of directors of Marin Ballet. He also serves on the advisory boards of the accounting programs at Santa Clara University and the University of Southern California, as well as the USC Marshall School of Business.

Previously, Joe served as a trustee for St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco and served as a board member of the Value Reporting Foundation, which was the governing entity responsible for the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (or SASB) and the International Integrated Reporting Council.

After graduating from Santa Clara in 1985, Joe joined Arthur Andersen LLP in their San Francisco assurance practice, where he spent 11 years. Between Arthur Andersen and Salesforce, Joe spent time in key finance roles with two public companies, Chiron Corporation and Autodesk.

While at Santa Clara, Joe was active in many student organizations, serving for example as a co-chair of the Accounting Association, the president of the Business Administration Association (no longer in existence), and the business manager of the school's newspaper. He was recognized at commencement as the student who contributed the most to the Leavey School of Business.

Joe recently announced his plan to retire this August. In recognition of his service to Salesforce, the cloud industry and the local community, Salesforce endowed a scholarship at the University of Southern California in the Leventhal School of Accounting in his honor. This is the first time that Salesforce has done something like this.

Joe and his wife Lisa have been married for over 30 years. Their two kids graduated from USC. Joe's daughter is also a Salesforce employee, working in its sales organization, and is a cheerleader for the San Francisco 49ers. She recently got engaged to be married. Joe's son, who was previously an elementary school teacher, works in the development organization of a San Francisco nonprofit which supports military veterans.

Photo by Ana Henderson, Class of 2024.  Photo of Dean Ed Grier, Joe Allanson, and Chair Siqi Li.