Marc R. Benioff ’86, chairman and chief executive officer of salesforce.com, has been elected to the USC Board of Trustees.

“I am both delighted and proud to welcome Marc Benioff as the newest member of our board,” said USC president C. L. Max Nikias. “Marc embodies a rare combination of qualities: He is not only an astute businessman, but also a visionary innovator and a determined philanthropist who is deeply committed to creating a better world. His experience, passion and commitment will be invaluable as we work to secure USC’s undisputed status as an elite global university.”

Benioff said: “I look forward to sharing my knowledge of technology, innovation and philanthropy to help the USC community continue to thrive.”

Benioff founded salesforce.com in 1999 with the intent of making business applications as easy to use as Amazon.com. Less than a year after the company’s formation, he launched the Salesforce.com Foundation, integrating philanthropy, strong ethics and corporate responsibility.

In 2010, Benioff was awarded the David Packard Medal of Achievement and was named one of the Top 50 People in Business by Fortune.

He also has been honored as the Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the USC Marshall School of Business. Benioff received a bachelor of science in business administration from USC in 1986.

Participants Needed for Health Survey

USC alumni are invited to be part of a survey that will promote lifetime health and wellness among members of the Trojan Family.

Participants in the Trojan Lifetime Champions program can complete a questionnaire and receive a coffeehouse gift card as a token of appreciation.

For more information, contact Shawn C. Sorenson at Sorenson@usc.edu.

New Post for USC Marshall Professor Lucy Lee

USC Marshall School of Business professor Lucy Lee has been appointed director of the school’s Center for Management Communication for a three-year term beginning July 1.

Lee, professor of clinical management communication, served for several years on the faculty council, where she helped write the USC Marshall faculty manual and was a key member of the task force that developed the school’s undergraduate curriculum.

In 2005, she was the first winner of the Evan C. Thompson Faculty Mentoring and Leadership Award. In 2006, she received the Remarkable Woman Award from USC’s Office of Campus Activities.

Lee earned a Ph.D. in higher education and organization change from UCLA, a master’s degree in journalism from USC and a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama from Occidental College.

LGBT Resource Center Receives $1,000 Grant

The LGBT Resource Center has received a $1,000 grant for its peer mentoring program, which provides LGBT students at USC with support throughout the school year.

The money – which comes from NASPA, a professional association for student affairs staff and students – will go toward assessing the program’s effectiveness through student surveys.

Students who participate in the program first meet with their peer mentors in October and set two or three goals for the school year. Unlike other mentoring programs the center offers, this one is specifically geared toward USC students.

The mentoring program, which formerly was housed within Counseling Services, was taken over by the LGBT Resource Center more than five years ago. Since then, center director Vincent Vigil said, the number of students involved has jumped from 10 to 60 — 30 students and 30 student mentors.

Frazier Named Editor of Journal of Marketing

Gary Frazier, holder of the Richard and Jarda Hurd Chair in Distribution Management and professor of marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business, has been named editor of the Journal of Marketing.

Frazier has served as co-editor of the journal since 2009. His three-year term as editor will begin July 1.

Frazier’s primary areas of expertise are in the structuring and management of channels of distribution and marketing strategy. He has published extensively in leading marketing journals and has served as an author of and contributor to a number of books.

He has consulted and taught for a number of major corporations, including Coca-Cola, General Electric, Honeywell, IBM, Intel and Microsoft.

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