Salesforce has announced the appointment of Rain Hu as country leader - area vice president and general manager - for the Singapore and Taiwan businesses, effective immediately. She steps into the position formerly held by Cecily Ng, who moved to Databricks in July.

Hu is based in Salesforce's Singapore office and is responsible for leading business growth in the two geographies. She joins the CRM giant from search, data and security software developer Elastic, where she headed the ASEAN and Greater China businesses and was a founding member of the Asia-Pacific-Japan team - growing the business over 1,000% in five years.

In total, Hu has 18 years' experience in the enterprise software sector, with a portfolio comprising major industry names from SolarWinds to ServiceNow to Cisco, where she held regional leadership responsibilities.

Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Salesforce ASEAN, said Hu has a "deep understanding of the region’s needs and nuances", and described her as "an exceptional people leader with a proven track record in empowering her teams to achieve business and customer success as they navigate new technologies and change."

In a post on LinkedIn announcing her new role, Hu called it an "incredible opportunity" and commented on the potential that AI brings to the combination of data and CRM.

“Both Singapore and Taiwan are key markets with a strong digital economy, with Singapore being a regional business hub. It’s an exciting time to join Salesforce as recent breakthroughs in AI are ushering in a new era of innovation for the industry," she added.