10 Salesforce AI and data science leaders
Salesforce AI and data science leaders on this page currently hold titles such as VP, Machine Learning, VP Search Relevance and AI, VP, AI Labs, Senior Director, AI Research, Senior Director, AI Engineering, Senior Director, Data Science and Director of AI Research. A reader can learn how AI and data science leaders work at Salesforce from people who have held the role.
Professionals to explore
Alexander Smith
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director, AI Engineering · Salesforce
Alexander Smith has been Senior Director, AI Engineering at Salesforce since February 2026. Alexander Smith was Senior Director of Product Management, AI at Salesforce from 2025 to 2026, Director of Product Management, AI there from 2023 to 2025 and Senior Manager, Data Engineering from 2022 to 2023.
Carson Kahn
LinkedInExperience: Managing Director of Foundation Models & Pre-Training and VP, AI Labs · Salesforce
Carson Kahn has been Managing Director of Foundation Models & Pre-Training and VP, AI Labs at Salesforce since August 2026. Carson Kahn was Head of Spindle, Agentforce at Salesforce from 2025 to 2026 and Co-Founder, CTO for AI at Spindle AI, which Salesforce acquired, from 2021 to 2025.
Ghislain Brun
LinkedInExperience: VP Search Relevance and AI · Salesforce
Ghislain Brun has been VP Search Relevance and AI at Salesforce since August 2026. Ghislain Brun was Senior Director of Search ML/AI at Salesforce from 2022 to 2026, working on learning to rank, question answering and semantic search, and Director of Relevance Engineering there from 2020 to 2022.
Irina Malkova
LinkedInExperience: VP Product and Customer Success Data and AI · Salesforce
Irina Malkova has been VP Product and Customer Success Data and AI at Salesforce since September 2025. Irina Malkova held VP, AI Engineering at Salesforce from February to October 2025, VP, Data & Analytics for Technology & Product there from 2023 to 2025 and VP, Data Science Apps, Data Intelligence from 2021 to 2023.
Ran Xu
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director, AI Research · Salesforce
Ran Xu has been Senior Director, AI Research at Salesforce since February 2026, a Research role at Senior level. Ran Xu was Director, AI Research at Salesforce from 2021 to 2026, Senior Manager, Applied AI Research there from 2019 to 2021 and Staff Scientist at Weibo Corporation from 2018 to 2019.
Rick Handt
LinkedInExperience: VP, Machine Learning · Salesforce
Rick Handt has been VP, Machine Learning at Salesforce since October 2025. Rick Handt was VP, Applied Machine Learning & Data Science at SiriusXM from 2022 to 2025, VP Machine Learning & Innovation at Disney Streaming from 2016 to 2022 and VP, Applied Analytics at iQor from 2013 to 2016.
Saptarshi Ghose
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director, AI Engineering · Salesforce
Saptarshi Ghose has been Senior Director, AI Engineering at Salesforce since March 2025. Saptarshi Ghose was Director, Data Science and Machine Learning at Salesforce from 2022 to 2025, Senior Manager, Data Science there from 2021 to 2022 and Team Lead / Staff Data Scientist at Mozilla from 2018 to 2021.
Shelby Heinecke
LinkedInExperience: Director of AI Research · Salesforce
Shelby Heinecke has been Director of AI Research at Salesforce since March 2026, and describes 35+ AI research publications across AI agents, LLMs and SLMs. Shelby Heinecke was Senior AI Research Manager at Salesforce from 2024 to 2026 and AI Research Manager there from 2022 to 2024.
Sumanth Venkatasubbaiah
LinkedInExperience: Director, AI Engineering · Salesforce
Sumanth Venkatasubbaiah has been Director, AI Engineering at Salesforce since April 2026, focused on agentic evaluations, LLM-as-a-judge and trustworthy AI. Sumanth Venkatasubbaiah was Sr Manager - AI, Analytics & Data at Intuit from 2020 to 2026 and Staff Machine Learning Software Engineer there from 2018 to 2020.
Talha Aftab
LinkedInExperience: Senior Director, Data Science · Salesforce
Talha Aftab has been Senior Director, Data Science at Salesforce since February 2026. Talha Aftab was Director, Data Science at Salesforce from 2022 to 2026, Senior Manager there in 2022, Lead Analyst from 2021 to 2022 and Senior Analyst, Strategy and Growth from 2019 to 2021.
Choose the right perspective
Match the person's area, such as AI research and foundation models, AI engineering for agents, search relevance, or data science for the business, to the decision you face. Check when each person's current role started to judge how recent their view of the work is.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How do you decide which AI capabilities ship in the shared platform and which are built inside a single product?
- 02What has worked for you in moving work from AI research into production features that customers use?
- 03How do you measure whether an AI or data science effort changed customer or business results?
Reaching Salesforce AI and data science leaders
How can I contact one of these Salesforce AI and data science leaders?
Pick one of the 10 people on this page and choose "Book a paid call", or describe your project to find others. You offer a fee for a 15-minute call or a written answer, Instant Expert finds the person's work email and sends the invitation, and they decide whether to accept. The list covers 1 company: Salesforce, based on profile data retrieved on October 26, 2026. Being listed here doesn't mean someone has agreed to take calls.
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Can an AI agent ask one of these Salesforce AI and data science leaders a question?
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About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot; roles marked former had ended by then. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.