McDermott Becomes First American to Lead SAP

Bill McDermott, who joined SAP AG as president of its North American operations in 2002, was named co-CEO of the German business software giant.

McDermott is the first American to co-lead SAP. In 2008, he became the first American to be named to its executive board.

SAP, which has its headquarters for the Americas in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, said Sunday that McDermott will be in charge of its field organization. Jim Hagemann Snabe, who was also named co-CEO Sunday, will be in charge of product development.

Both McDermott and Snabe were members of SAP’s executive board.

Their appointments came after SAP’s supervisory board and Leo Apotheker, who had been the company’s CEO, agreed not to extend his contract as a member of SAP’s executive board, resulting in Apotheker resigning immediately from the executive board and from his post as CEO.

SAP also appointed its chief technology officer, Vishal Sikka, to its executive board.

At the request of the supervisory board, SAP’s co-founder, Hasso Plattner, who chairs the board, will continue to play a strong role in advising McDermott and Snabe on technology and product development.

“The new setup of the SAP executive board will allow SAP to better align product innovation with customer needs,” Plattner said.

Prior to joining SAP, McDermott was executive vice president for Siebel Systems Inc., a developer of customer relationship management software that was acquired by Oracle Corp. in 2006. He also was president of technology research firm Gartner Inc. and spent 17 years at Xerox Corp., where he became the company’s youngest corporate officer and division president.

McDermott has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Dowling College.

Although SAP did better in the fourth quarter and all of last year than it and analysts had forecast, it still posted sales declines due to lower software and software-related service revenue.