Benioff appeared on 60 Minutes this weekend to describe his company’s and his personal reckoning with pay inequality. He began by admitting to CBS journalist Lesley Stahl that when Cindy Robbins, Salesforce’s chief of personnel, raised the topic of potentially unfair pay practices a few years ago, he was in full denial... [An] audit uncovered a statistical difference in pay between men and women... He fixed that by bumping up pay for women earning less for the same work as men, which cost Salesforce $3 million. He also created a new rule that would make it more likely that women would be promoted and seen as leaders... [H]e declared he wouldn’t hold a meeting unless 30% of the participants were women... When the company ran a second audit a year later, it found the gap had widened back out... The gap returned because Salesforce had acquired dozens of smaller firms, and with them, their cultural norms and pay practices. Once again, Salesforce smoothed out salary differences, spending another $3 million. The audit, the company realized, will have to be continuous.

... [Benioff] doesn’t believe you can be a decent CEO in 2018 and not be committed to gender equality, but he’s had to convince other male leaders of its importance, and sometimes fields questions about whether the well-documented pay gap even exists.