The New SAP Boys’ Club

SAP Strategist Christian Klein

At the beginning of his career on the SAP Executive Board, Christian Klein was a good strategist. He read the mood and reactions of the then chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board, Professor Hasso Plattner. Klein stepped forward, schemed against his co-CEO Jennifer Morgan, and after a few months of dual leadership, became the sole head of SAP.

Just as cleverly, he surrounded himself with other members of the executive board, above all Jürgen Müller, who had a sensational career at SAP under Hasso Plattner's protective umbrella. In this way, Christian Klein not only positioned a harmless and inexperienced board member, but also did Professor Hasso Plattner a favor.

However, Christian Klein was not so lucky with his fellow board member Thomas Saueressig, who initially appeared to be more on the quiet side. However, Saueressig quickly developed his management skills. He triumphed at the World Economic Forum in Davos and conquered more and more strategic areas at SAP. Today, Thomas Saueressig is considered the most important and strategically best positioned member of the SAP Executive Board.

The history of SAP Chief Technology Officers

Being Chief Technology Officer at SAP has always been a special challenge because Professor Hasso Plattner has always had the last word. The ambivalent relationship between the CTO and Hasso Plattner began with Peter Zencke in his changing roles as Executive Board and Supervisory Board member. Together with Plattner, he was responsible for the introduction of SAP R/3's three-tier client/server model. Peter Zencke later tried his hand at SAP Business ByDesign, a precursor to an SAP cloud solution. Zencke wasted a billion euros in development costs and lost the trust of Hasso Plattner along the way. Zencke retired as CTO without a fond farewell from Professor Hasso Plattner, who was the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Professor Henning Kagermann was CEO of SAP at the time.

But Plattner already had a successor in mind, and in an almost fatherly manner, he brought him into the company as his new adopted son. Shai Agassi is Israeli. He sold his former start-up to SAP and was also given the position of SAP's Chief Technology Officer. Agassi was extremely ambitious and wanted to become not only Plattner's foster son and SAP's CTO, but also Professor Henning Kagermann's successor and SAP's new CEO. Plattner had other plans, however, and initially formed a dual leadership team consisting of Henning Kagermann and Léo Apotheker. Shai Agassi then left SAP, the global ERP market leader, and Plattner had to look for a new foster son to take under his wing.

Professor Hasso Plattner found the young SAP assistant Vishal Sikka in California, USA. Sikka, who had a PhD in mathematics, was quickly appointed Chief Technology Officer and entrusted with the commercial development of SAP's new Hana database. For a long time, Plattner and Sikka were of the same mind, however, Vishal Sikka wanted to turn Hana into a global success story and position part of it as open source. This makes sense as the underlying operating system is Linux, which is already open source. Plattner had other plans, and Sikka left—or was made to leave—SAP following a decision by the Supervisory Board. A few days later, Bernd Leukert was named SAP's new Chief Technology Officer.

CTO Bernd Leukert worked quietly and successfully, but not spectacularly. Apparently too serious for SAP's then-CEO Bill McDermott. The American McDermott preferred things to be loud, colorful, simple, and fast. His mottowas: "Run simple!” Bernd Leukert eventually needed to leave SAP and moved from Walldorf to Frankfurt to instead join the board of Deutsche Bank.

This was the time for Jürgen Müller to shine. Müller’s Ph.D. advisor had been Professor Hasso Plattner at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) at the University of Potsdam, in Germany. Initially, Mueller also worked intensively with the Hana database, which of course won Plattner’s goodwill, since he was Hana's inventor. After much trial and error, the SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) was created under Müller's leadership. BTP quickly became SAP's strategic project for the future, making Jürgen Müller one of the most important members of the Executive Board. His end as a member of the Executive Board came as a shock and remains personal, lending it added mystery. Professor Hasso Plattner is no longer Chairman of the SAP Supervisory Board and is no longer involved in their decisions.

The SAP triumvirate and an SAP CFO

The recent history of the SAP Executive Board resembles the story of the three musketeers and d'Artagnan. At SAP, the triumvirate consisted of Executive Board members Christian Klein, Thomas Saueressig, and Jürgen Müller, and former SAP CFO Luka Mucic. For a long time, this constellation seemed to have a solid foundation and a clear division of responsibilities, but CFO Mucic wanted more. He neglected SAP's share price and lost Hasso Plattner’s favor. Mucic had to go.

Thomas Saueressig wanted to stand out. He developed his management skills and surrounded himself with more and more strategic SAP tasks. While SAP CEO Christian Klein increasingly managed the ERP company and led the share price to an all-time high, Thomas Saueressig positioned himself as the future hope of SAP.

The future of the SAP Executive Board

After the surprise departure of Chief Technology Officer Jürgen Müller, the current SAP Executive Board has a new boys' club, a new configuration to the Three Musketeers: Christian Klein, Thomas Saueressig, and CFO Dominik Asam. They all work well together and have found a solid working arrangement. CEO Christian Klein and Dominik Asam manage the ERP company and maintain the share price, while Thomas Saueressig takes care of the strategic direction. It seems obvious that with the direction things are taking, Thomas Saueressig will soon take over from Christian Klein at the helm of SAP, following Jürgen Müller’s departure. Once SAP’s metamorphosis is complete, SAP will need a new CEO.