How Salesforce’s former CFO is scaling a humanitarian giant

Soon after Amy Weaver announced that she would be stepping down as chief financial officer of Salesforce, the San Francisco-based company known for its customer relationship management software, she got a note on LinkedIn from an organization she had never heard of. It was Direct Relief, a humanitarian nonprofit based in Santa Barbara, California, that provides free medical aid and disaster relief across the United States and around the world. It sources donated medicines and supplies and delivers them to clinics, hospitals, and community health centers. Weaver nearly deleted that LinkedIn note, but then she found a Forbes article ranking Direct Relief fifth on the list of America’s top 100 charities. She became its CEO in May. “I live in California. I thought, how is it possible that I did not know about this?” she said. “I just became fascinated by what Direct Relief was doing — their mission, the platform, and just the scale it was operating at.” A year ago last week, Weaver logged on for a virtual interview for the CEO job at 1 a.m. from her hotel room in Warsaw, Poland, where she had traveled as a board member for Habitat for Humanity. Upon returning to California, she visited the Direct Relief headquarters in Santa Barbara, where flags from all 50 U.S. states and 136 countries mark where the organization has delivered aid over the past 77 years. With pallets and crates filling the 155,000-square-foot warehouse, she realized this was the job for her. Over the past six months, Weaver has been on a listening tour — spending the first two months focused on employees and local partners, the next two months focused on visiting health clinics and other on-the-ground partners overseas, and the last two months meeting with corporate donors. That groundwork, she said, was essential before setting any new strategy. Now, she’s ready to determine what’s next, as the organization — which has never taken government money — expands its global footprint. Direct Relief received a record $2.41 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, with $2.39 billion of in-kind donations, including medical supplies, transportation, and software; and $139 million in cash donations. It’s increasing support across Africa by more than 50% this year, has surpassed $2 billion in medical assistance to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, and is opening a new European headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The decision to establish a European subsidiary, building on an existing third-party warehouse outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, reflects a broader shift in how Direct Relief is positioning itself globally — closer to where medicines are manufactured, closer to new donors, and closer to the regions where needs are growing fastest. While Direct Relief has historically worked primarily with U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies, it has relationships with nearly 80 pharmaceutical manufacturers around the globe. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, European companies stepped up in force — helping accelerate plans to establish a permanent presence on the continent. “We want to make sure we’re looking everywhere for sources of medicine,” Weaver told Devex. International and domestic relief Weaver succeeds Thomas Tighe, who led Direct Relief for 24 years and oversaw its expansion into one of the largest providers of charitable medicines worldwide. Today, Direct Relief operates with roughly 100 employees, a relatively lean staff for an organization that moves more than $2 billion in medical aid each year. The organization operates warehouses that allow it to handle, store, and distribute large volumes of donated medicines and medical supplies. In 2019, Tighe told Devex that Direct Relief brings the same high standards required in the U.S. for storage, safety, and security to its international medical response. “We wanted to make sure there was a charitable channel as good as any commercial distribution channel,” Tighe said. “We wanted to make sure there were not lesser standards for people who happen to be low-income.” Founded in California in 1948 by Estonian immigrant William Zimdin after he fled Europe during World War II, the organization began by sending food, clothing, and medicines to people rebuilding their lives — a mission that still shapes its model today. Direct Relief has drawn from an endowment funded largely through legacy gifts and bequests, as well as investment returns on those funds. And since 2007, all of the organization’s fundraising expenses have been covered by those earnings, allowing nearly 100% of donations to go directly to aid. For much of its history, Direct Relief focused primarily on international work. But after Hurricane Katrina hit coastal Mississippi and Louisiana in 2005, emergency federal waivers allowed Direct Relief to send $50 million in medical aid to U.S. Gulf Coast states. “Direct Relief realized they could ship medicine to Liberia but not Louisiana,” Weaver said. The experience led the organization to drop “International” from its name and become licensed to distribute prescription medicines in all 50 U.S. states. From tech CFO to humanitarian CEO Weaver’s transition from corporate C-suite into humanitarian leadership wasn’t the first time she has made a dramatic career pivot. Five years ago, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked her to shift from chief legal officer to CFO — the first time a Fortune 500 company had ever made such a move. In that role, she oversaw Salesforce’s global finance organization, which approached nearly $38 billion in annual revenue at the time she stepped down. She said the transition was unexpected and unlikely, but also terrifying. “It was a huge jump for me, and in a lot of ways, that actually foreshadowed this jump I took from being CFO of a public company to CEO of a nonprofit,” she said. She had never worked in the humanitarian sector before. But Weaver sees the move to Direct Relief as a continuation of her longtime interest in service. “If you look at LinkedIn, it looks like I just took a very sharp turn to the right or the left,” she said. “But it feels like a much more natural evolution to me.” She grew up in a family of lawyers, with parents who volunteered regularly, and after law school, she turned down large firms to move to Hong Kong, working on democracy and governance issues. Weaver was drawn to Salesforce in part because of its 1-1-1 model, a philanthropic framework pledging 1% of equity, 1% of product, and 1% of employee time to social impact. She also traveled all over the world as part of her board service for Habitat for Humanity. Now, Weaver is bringing her legal, finance, and technology background to Direct Relief, as well as her experience as CFO of a tech giant during the rapid growth of generative AI. “I got to witness company after company making these quantum leaps forward,” Weaver said. “I really felt passionately that we've got to have the humanitarian world come along. What I don't want to have happen is that corporations are getting better, and staff are getting more efficient, and the gap is just growing and growing and growing.” She said she looks at everything from a tech angle, including how to better leverage technology, how to partner with tech companies, and how to focus on growth, speed, and innovation. That mindset builds on systems Direct Relief has long invested in — from data-driven inventory management to predictive logistics — tools the organization was already using in its warehouse operations back in 2019. At the time, Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief’s vice president of research and analysis, said: “There’s no such thing as a distribution company that’s not first an information company.” Working with partners, including the AI company Dataminr, Direct Relief is increasingly using advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence to anticipate needs before crises spiral. AI-enabled tools pull together real-time signals — from disease outbreak reports to climate events and population movements — allowing a small staff to understand what is unfolding, what medicines are likely to be needed, and where supply chains are most at risk. Real-time intelligence helps the organization move faster to minimize disruption to local health systems. The right time, the right team Another takeaway from Weaver’s time as CFO at Salesforce was the importance of identifying her own weaknesses, seeking out people with complementary skill sets, and then hiring for strengths to fill those gaps. Since taking the job, she’s made several high-profile hires. They include Jennifer Lotito, former president and chief operating officer of the anti-AIDS advocacy organization (RED), as chief external affairs officer; Byron Scott, who served as Direct Relief’s interim CEO and was most recently chief operating officer, and is now transitioning to chief health officer; and Craig Redmond, most recently CEO of Relief International, who is starting as chief operating officer today. The scale of opportunity, Weaver said, is one of the hardest parts of the job. When she spoke with Devex last Monday, ahead of a meeting with an Africa working group, she talked about the challenge of an overflowing inbox. “You walk into an organization that has this much opportunity and could be doing this much good, and it is really hard not to want to do everything all at once,” she said. “It is prioritization and patience, and neither of those are my strengths.” She has to remind herself daily to slow down, take a breath, and “ruthlessly prioritize” what Direct Relief can do, and when. Weaver stepped into the CEO role at a moment of major disruption for the global humanitarian system. She was offered the job in January during the same week the Trump administration issued a stop-work order at the U.S. Agency for International Development. While it did not affect Direct Relief directly, it sent shock waves through a sector deeply dependent on U.S. government funding. “I will say there were a number of nights between when I was announced as CEO and when I actually took the role that I woke up at 2 or 3 a.m. wondering what have I just walked into and wondering if I had just chosen literally the worst moment in history to move into humanitarian aid,” she said. But Weaver said she sees this moment as an opportunity for the sector to rebuild differently, and she wants Direct Relief to help lead that shift. Direct Relief relies on donated medical products, logistics support from corporate partners including FedEx, and private philanthropy. It works with unconventional entities, from tech firms such as Google to consumer brands such as Unilever to fundraising platforms GoFundMe to Gamers Without Borders. That puts the organization at an advantage in the wake of funding cuts from the U.S. and other bilateral donors, and Weaver said it makes her feel “morally obligated to step up.” A more global footprint Direct Relief maintains large warehouses and stockpiles medical supplies worldwide — a model that allows it to move quickly in emergencies, but comes with trade-offs. Warehousing is far more capital-intensive than just-in-time procurement models, and is best suited to acute crises rather than steady, predictable demand. For-profit suppliers, by contrast, are often better positioned to negotiate prices and respond to consistent market needs over time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it anchored the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa, coordinating private donors and logistics partners to deliver nearly 60 million pieces of personal protective equipment to front-line health workers across 11 countries. Direct Relief recently posted a video of Weaver in an orange neon vest thanking partners including the Miami Heat basketball team, the Micky and Madeleine Arison Family Foundation, and the Carnival Corporation, which donated cruise ships to send donated medical supplies and equipment from Miami to Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa in late October. As Direct Relief evaluates how it can do more amid the USAID cuts, Weaver said they are looking at needs two to three years out — including areas such as HIV/AIDS that have historically been well covered by U.S. government programs. Weaver is also focused on increasing cash fundraising, particularly as Direct Relief expands its work across Africa, where shipping and last-mile logistics are significantly more expensive. She hopes to offset those costs through a more globally distributed operational footprint — including Direct Relief’s new European headquarters. Roughly a quarter of the medicines that Direct Relief delivers around the world originate in Europe. Companies including Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim welcomed the expansion, framing it as a way to strengthen coordination and deliver critical medicines more quickly and cheaply. These plans were in the works before Weaver joined Direct Relief. “When the Ukraine war hit, we really saw the European pharmaceutical companies really opening up their warehouses, opening up their hearts, so this timed very well,” she said. “It streamlines the process for them, it gets us closer to these key donors, so that we understand their needs and we’re working with them directly.” Weaver noted a recent trip to Japan to meet with pharmaceutical companies, and an upcoming trip to India, saying the European subsidiary is “a great first start” for a more global approach. She also recalled a trip to Uganda over the summer to the Global HOPE pediatric cancer ward in Kampala, where she saw doctors offering world-class treatment when donated medicines were available. “These are all problems that can be solved. There isn’t a shortage of talent and medication. We just have to get it to the right places,” she said. “And if I can help magnify what Direct Relief is doing and get the resources to do more, I think we can make a world of difference.”