Bill McDermott, the chief executive officer of SAP, is stepping down.
SAP announced his resignation in a blog post late last week, noting that McDermott has chosen not to renew his contract with the company. As per SAP’s existing succession plan, the company has named executive board members Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein as co-chief executive officers, which will take effect as soon as the SAP Supervisory Board provides its approval.
McDermott served as CEO at SAP for a decade, and according to the company, he will retain an advisory role at the firm until the end of the year to support the CEO transition.
In a statement, SAP Supervisory Board Chairman Professor Hasso Plattner said, “SAP would not be what it is today without Bill McDermott.”
“Bill made invaluable contributions to this company and he was a main driver of SAP’s transition to the cloud, which will fuel our growth for many years to come,” Plattner continued, adding congratulations for Morgan and Klein’s new roles within SAP.
“Bill and I made the decision over a year ago to expand Jennifer and Christian’s roles as part of a long-term process to develop them as our next generation of leaders,” he said. “We are confident in their vision and capabilities as we take SAP to its next phase of growth and innovation.”
In another statement, McDermott pointed to the company’s “exciting new chapter” with this leadership change, adding that he would “lay the foundation” for Morgan and Klein to take the reins in 2020.
As reports in The Wall Street Journal noted, SAP launched a $1 billion restructuring initiative earlier this year, plans of which included thousands of jobs cuts. As SAP continues to invest in its cloud migration, the company said in April it planned to triple cloud computing sales by 2024, and boosted its earning targets.
