The decision was made today at a regular meeting of the SAP Supervisory Board. With the decision, SAP is preparing another smooth management transition at the top of the company. From today on, Henning Kagermann and Lo Apotheker will jointly guide the future of the worlds leading provider of business software.
The supervisory board today also appointed to the SAP Executive Board three new members, effective July 1, 2008: Corporate Officers Erwin Gunst, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe.
Henning Kagermann requested that the supervisory board appoint Lo Apotheker as co-CEO in order to prepare him as successor in the best possible way during the remainder of Hennings tenure, said Hasso Plattner, SAP co-founder and supervisory board chairman. The supervisory board today followed his request. After years of massive investments and the successful launch of trendsetting innovations in the areas of service-oriented architecture, new solutions and business models for the midmarket, the use of main memory databases and modern analytics as well as state-of-the-art user interfaces, SAP now faces the task of boosting the application of these innovations among our customers and end users. With Bill McDermott, Jim Hagemann Snabe and Erwin Gunst, three proven market experts will gain executive board functions. In my view, facing these challenges together with the new executive team, Lo Apotheker is an ideal CEO and thus my preferred successor for Henning Kagermann.
Kagermann and Apotheker will continue their close collaboration of the previous years to focus the company on continued profitable growth and on providing innovative solutions to a growing market.
New Members Appointed to Executive Board
Effective July 1, 2008, new appointments to the executive board extend the companys top management to a team of ten. Erwin Gunst, Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe will bring their extensive software industry and customer-focused experience to the board.
McDermott joined SAP in 2002 to manage the Americas region. He successfully led the companys market growth in North America and Latin America over the past six years. His purview was recently extended to oversee operations also in Asia Pacific and Japan. In the future, McDermott will have responsibility for all sales regions worldwide.
Snabe will have full development responsibility for SAP Business Suite and the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. He has been with the company for more than fifteen years, holding various management positions in sales and development, including managing director of the SAP Nordic region and general manager for industry solutions development globally.
Joining the executive board in the newly created position of chief operating officer (COO), Erwin Gunst will aim to further improve the companys operations and process efficiency. A 20-year SAP veteran, Gunst currently serves as president of the companys Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
The responsibilities of all other current executive board members and corporate officers remain unchanged.
