Given regular and consistent public interest in the ongoing success of SAP AG, the company issues regular statements regarding SAP’s strategy, stakeholders and other case-study elements surrounding the world’s business software market leader. This statement revolves around the visionary leadership and guidance of Hasso Plattner, co-founder and chairperson of the Supervisory Board of SAP AG. Some media reports and independent commentary have failed to correctly characterize the nature of Plattner’s official, non-executive chairmanship and, more broadly, everything he means to the company’s 67,000 employees.

Day-to-day management of SAP, including the company’s human resources, financial management, software development, sales, support and customer engagement, is the exclusive responsibility of the Executive Board of SAP AG. Hasso Plattner, as the Supervisory Board chairman, has a strong passion for SAP’s innovation leadership but is not involved at all in the operational management of the company. As software advisor to SAP, his external project leadership for SAP HANA research and development, granted by the Supervisory Board and Executive Board, was instrumental for the successful development of the SAP HANA platform. Today SAP HANA remains the fastest growing product in the history of the enterprise software industry and in the history of SAP, with more than 3,000 SAP HANA customers since market launch.

“The employees of SAP take enormous pride in having one of our original founders, an innovator and technology visionary of global esteem, as the chairman of our Supervisory Board. Hasso Plattner takes the responsibilities of his role very seriously,” said Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEOs and members of the Executive Board of SAP AG. “Hasso’s leadership and involvement in SAP is totally consistent with German compliance laws. While fundamentally separate from the executive management responsibilities of the co-CEOs and Executive Board, Hasso and the Supervisory Board are a significant positive influence behind the unprecedented global adoption of the SAP HANA platform. With the full support of our chairman and Supervisory Board, SAP is focused on executing a customer-driven innovation strategy and remaining the fastest growing mega-cap IT company in the cloud.”

Hasso Plattner, in his capacity as co-founder of SAP together with Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther, Dietmar Hopp and Hans-Werner Hector, is routinely cited as an inspiration for many initiatives executed by the SAP leadership team. The recently opened Innovation Center in Potsdam, Germany, was designed to empower SAP employees to innovate new software breakthroughs that live up to the bold spirit of Plattner’s original conception of the SAP HANA platform. The company also plans to unveil an SAP Founders Award, designed to recognize employee-led innovation and bold thinking.

For more information, press only:
Christoph Liedtke, +49 (6227) 7-50383, christoph.liedtke@sap.com, CET
Daniel Reinhardt, +49 (6227) 7-40201, daniel.reinhardt@sap.com, CET
Jim Dever, +1 (610) 661-2161, james.dever@sap.com, EDT