INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
When Bill McDermott announced he was stepping downas CEO at SAP a couple of weeks ago, it certainly felt like a curious move — but he
landed on his feet pretty quickly
ServiceNow announced he would be taking over as CEO there
The transition will take place at year-end.
If you&re wondering what happened to the current ServiceNow CEO, John Donahoe, well he landed a
The CEO carousel goes round and round (and painted ponies go up and down).
Jeff Miller, lead independent director on the ServiceNow board of
directors, was &thrilled& to have McDermott fill the void left by Donahoe departure
&His global experience and proven track record will provide for a smooth transition and continued strong leadership
Bill will further enhance ServiceNow momentum and reputation as a digital workflows leader committed to customer success, and as a preferred
strategic partner enabling enterprise digital transformation,& Miller said in a statement.
Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein replaced
McDermott as co-CEOs at SAP, and during the announcement, McDermott indicated he would stay until the end of the year to help with the
After that, no vacation for McDermott, who will apparently start at ServiceNow after his obligations at SAP end.
As Frederic Lardinois wrote
regarding McDermott resignation:
I last spoke to McDermott about a month ago, during a fireside chat at our TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise
At the time, I didn&t come away with the impression that this was a CEO on his way out (though McDermott reminded me that if he had already
made his decision a month ago, he probably wouldn&t have given it away).
ServiceNow is a much different company than SAP
SAP was founded in 1972 and was a traditional on-premises software company
ServiceNow was founded in 2004 and was born as a SaaS company
While McDermott was part of a transition from a traditional, on-premises enterprise software company to the cloud, working at ServiceNow he
will be leading a much smaller organization
Published estimates have SAP at around 100,000 employees, while ServiceNow now has around 10,000.
It worth noting that the company made the
announcement after the market closed and it announced its latest quarterly earnings
Wall Street did not appear to the like news, as the stock was down $13.34, or 5.84%, in early after-hours trading.
SAP Bill McDermott on
