Marc Benioff

If there’s a poster boy for the era of socially active CEOs, it’s—quite easily—Marc Benioff, who has masterfully mobilized his company as a vehicle for his social agenda. He was one of the loudest opponents of Indiana’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom” law last year, announcing that his $5.4 billion cloud-based software company would boycott the state altogether. (That law was amended; Benioff is now fighting a similar measure in Georgia.) He has also emerged as a pay-equity pioneer, tackling the stubborn gender pay gap by examining the methodology used to compensate his own 16,000 employees and mandating that women make up 30% of all meeting attendees.