In today’s fast-changing digital world, leadership is not just about making decisions, it is about creating a vision, inspiring teams, and guiding organizations through transformation. With over three decades of experience in enterprise software, Hitesh Sahijwaala, EVP Salesforce & ServiceNow Practice, has navigated global roles across technology giants and high-growth startups, shaping strategies that drive agility, trust, and collaboration.

In this leadership spotlight, Hitesh shares his core principles, his vision for Digile’s Salesforce and ServiceNow practices, and his perspective on how AI, resilience, and teamwork will define the next chapter of enterprise technology.

With over three decades of experience in enterprise software, what core leadership principles have guided you throughout your journey?

I would emphasize on Speed, Resilience, Agility, Trust and collaboration as core tenets. These principles are highly reflective in a “Formula 1 sport: which isn’t just “drivers + pit crew.” It’s a multi-disciplinary organization with hundreds of people spanning engineering, data science, logistics, media, sponsorship, and performance support.

Agility in Innovation and Grit in adversity are central to my leadership vision. This aligns with broader leadership wisdom: High-growth tech teams rely on a clear, inspiring purpose and a culture of trust. Experts stress that high-performing teams “Trust each other” and engage in “Constructive, robust dialogue,” implying to prioritize on open communication and mutual respect. By combining a bold vision with integrity and teamwork, have managed to provide guidance to large Enterprise Initiatives over the decades.

How do you see Digile’s Salesforce & ServiceNow practices evolving to meet the needs of enterprises in today’s fast-changing digital landscape?

In today’s fast-paced market, Enterprises demand Agile, Integrated CRM and ITSM solutions. Digile’s approach is to align technology closely with business goals. The company itself emphasizes that “successful business transformation happens when digital solutions strategy is aligned with the business objectives”.
 

Concretely, we expect Digile’s Salesforce and ServiceNow practices to evolve by deepening end-to-end integration, enhancing automation, and embedding analytics. For example, Digile highlights providing “Relevant Solutions” for ServiceNow using AI-driven service portals, mobile-friendly CRM interfaces, and cross-cloud Intelligent Data Flows.
 

Digile’s global Salesforce practice will similarly push beyond basic deployments into new areas like data-as-a-service and low-code workflows. Given enterprise trends of tighter coupling of Salesforce with other systems (ERP, data lakes, messaging tools) to support omnichannel sales and service. 
 

Have previously driven “hyper-growth” at Salesforce’s FinServ unit, so at Digile will focus on rapid, agile delivery – leveraging features like Salesforce’s industry-specific clouds and ServiceNow’s expanding Intelligent platform modules. 
 

In short, Digile’s Salesforce & ServiceNow teams will move toward fully managed, cloud-native solutions that help clients rapidly adapt to market changes, in line with Digile’s mantra of “agility” and continuous innovation

What role do you see AI playing in CRM and ITSM solutions in the near future?

AI is poised to transform both CRM and ITSM in the near future, a shift to be eagerly embraced and adopted by the industry in the next few years. 

On the CRM side, Salesforce’s own roadmap centres on generative AI: their new Einstein GPT platform is described as “the world’s first generative AI for CRM” that creates “personalized content across every Salesforce cloud”. In practice, this means sales emails, service replies, and marketing campaigns can be auto generated or assisted by AI copilots that pull from live customer data. Hence would therefore expect Salesforce implementations to increasingly leverage tools like Einstein GPT and Slack’s AI features to boost productivity and customer engagement.
 

In ITSM, ServiceNow is embedding AI into its core workflow engines. Analysts note that ServiceNow’s Now Platform uses AI to make IT service “efficient, predictive, and customer-centric”. Tasks like ticket categorization are automated by predictive models, and virtual assistants powered by NLP can guide employees to resolve issues without human intervention. Upcoming “Agentic AI” features will even allow AI-human collaboration on service cases. 

Combining both trends, I do foresee an ecosystem where CRM and ITSM systems use AI to anticipate needs, recommend actions, and handle routine tasks—freeing teams to focus on strategy. We should prepare enterprises by stressing data governance and user training, ensuring teams trust these AI tools.  AI is becoming the “Engine” of CRM/ITSM solutions, enabling smarter automation and personalized experiences as standard features.

You’ve built and led high-performance teams throughout your career. What do you believe are the key ingredients for nurturing such teams?

I definitely believe great teams are built on clear purpose, trust, and mutual support. Leadership research highlights that everyone on a high-performing team “should understand their core purpose and value”. 

Alignment cultivates by ensuring team members know “why they were brought together” and what success looks like. Equally important is for the high-functioning teams “To Trust Each other” and encourage open discussion. My early career in large firms like Salesforce, Oracle and Red Hat and later in startups like Lentra taught me the value of psychological safety – where people respectfully challenge ideas and share feedback.
 

In practice, invests in people through continuous coaching and enabling ownership. Basis my experience, project teams often blend senior experts with junior talent, ensuring a strong “supporting cast” around any star performer. Regular knowledge-sharing and cross-training are probably staples, echoing how open-source communities foster peer learning.  

I advocate celebrating quick wins for morale and learning from setbacks (to build resilience). 

Ultimately it is important to nurture teams by combining a compelling vision (“Rocketship” growth) with hands-on support, empowering each member to lead tasks in their area.  

In sum, the magical ingredients for a successful career are Clear Goals, Diverse Talent, Trust-filled Communication, and a Culture of Accountability.

What has been the most defining moment in your career so far?

I could reflect upon multiple defining career moments that fuelled high velocity growth phases. For example, after transitioning from MNC roles like HPe, Oracle ,Redhat and Salesforce   into an Indian start-up like Lentra , required a massive cultural and mindset shift for individuals to build “High Performance teams with a purpose” and to drive its expansion as a “Rocketship” and taking it “to another orbit” This metaphor captures a turning point – scaling a startup to serve 100+ million loans so far – that likely stands out as a defining moment.  

Similarly, leading Salesforce’s FinServ business in the application software Industry was far more enriching and transformative than Redhat ,which was focussed on Infrastructure software business.  This metaphor is like “Convincing a Customer with the Vehicle   Driving experience like Application software sales versus “Convincing the Customer on the road experience like the Infrastructure Software Sales.

How do you see the enterprise software ecosystem evolving, and how should leaders prepare for that future?

Looking ahead, I see Enterprise Software becoming more open, integrated and intelligence driven. Have observed that open source is now “the default choice for enterprises,” helping them innovate faster and meet changing demands Coupled with pervasive cloud and AI trends, this means future applications will be modular (microservices/APIs), data-centric, and continuously updated. Industry reports echo this: automation, machine learning, and hybrid cloud architectures will dominate the next phase of enterprise IT.

To prepare, I recommend leaders to foster adaptability and a learning culture. Teams must become comfortable with cloud migrations, data analytics, and emerging tech stacks. Leaders should invest in talent development (not just star performers) so that “non-stars” can also play critical roles would encourage executives to partner closely with technology teams and to keep business and IT strategy tightly aligned (Digile’s approach) 

In short, by treating disruption as opportunity – a lesson from open source “ecosystems” – leaders can future-proof their organizations. Those who stay curious, collaborate across boundaries, and build resilient systems will navigate the evolving software landscape most effectively

What’s one book, podcast, or movie that has influenced your outlook on leadership or life?

While we have to be our own Influencers and Motivators, I would cite influences from some of the transformational business books and often recommend “The Phoenix Project” (a DevOps novel) or “Good to Great” by Jim Collins for insights on organizational excellence.  

Podcasts like HBR IdeaCast or a “WTF podcast by Nikhil Kamath “which help with diversified views and industry thought leadership on topic’s impacting the Tech world of AI and Innovation, Successful Entrepreneur’s etc.
 

Films and documentaries on innovation such as “The Social Network” or “Print the Legend” can also inspire tech entrepreneurs. Though we can only speculate, it’s reasonable that I keep abreast of such resources – combining concrete business strategy content with wider perspectives on leadership and change.

Motivational quote that guides your leadership or captures your outlook

One quotation that encapsulates my leadership outlook is the author John Maxwell: 

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” 

I have repeatedly led from the front: mastering new technologies (knowing the way), driving major business initiatives (going the way), and mentoring teams to success (showing the way). As Maxwell’s line suggests, leadership philosophy is about demonstrating vision through results and guiding others by example 

Hitesh’s journey is a testament to how clarity of purpose, grit in adversity, and trust in people can shape not just high-performing teams but also enduring business success. His insights remind us that leadership is as much about listening and empowering as it is about innovating and executing.

At Digile, these values continue to guide how we approach digital transformation, ensuring that technology, strategy, and people move together toward meaningful impact.

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