SAP is restructuring its board of directors again.

The head of sales and marketing for Europe's largest software maker will leave the group at the end of August.

At Europe’s largest software maker SAP, there is once again a backlash in the top management. Marketing chief Julia White, 50, and sales chief Scott Russell, 50, will leave the company on August 31 after an agreement with the supervisory board, the DAX heavyweight announced Tuesday in Walldorf. The search for Russell’s successor is said to be underway.

Recently, the sale of subscriptions to use SAP software online (the cloud), which CEO Christian Klein has been pushing in particular, has been going well. However, customers are still reluctant to use the technical delivery methods that SAP prefers and are more profitable for the group. Klein is now taking over Russell’s duties himself on an interim basis.

SAP wants to enter the “growth phase”.

The White Board area, Marketing and Solutions, will be dissolved on September 1 – and the responsibilities will primarily move to the existing product and communications areas. “On the back of SAP’s successful cloud transformation, the Supervisory Board believes that now is the right time to enter the next phase of growth,” said Supervisory Board Chairman Pekka Alla-Pietila, who took over as chief controller from the company. Mayo founder and major shareholder Hasso Plattner took over.

CEO Klein and the Supervisory Board have been working on the right top management structure for a long time. In April, the group created a new division on the board to deliver cloud software to customers, which should also better care for customer satisfaction. There has also been a change in the position of employees. CFO Dominic Assam has also been a member of the company since March 2023. Under the board, SAP appointed former Microsoft executive Walter Sun as head of artificial intelligence (AI) last year. (APA/DPA-AFX)