SAP SE has announced that Microsoft Germany Management Board Chairwoman Sabine Bendiek has been appointed to join the SAP Executive Board as chief people officer and labor director in early 2021.
In this role, Bendiek will lead the Human Resources organization and people strategy for SAP. This includes attracting the best talent in the industry, providing a growth and learning environment for employees, and ensuring a consistent leadership culture to enable inclusion, accountability and agility.
“In Sabine Bendiek, we have found an exceptional executive who not only can drive a business-centric Human Resources function as the heart of our ongoing transformation, but also has deep operational experience,” said Professor Hasso Plattner, chairman of the Supervisory Board of SAP SE. “On behalf of the SAP Supervisory Board I welcome Sabine and wish her a very successful and smooth start to her SAP career.”
To quickly adapt to changing needs of customers and allow for future growth, an organization’s people and processes must work together seamlessly. Tapping into her broad business perspective, Bendiek will assume additional responsibility as chief operating officer in mid-2021, becoming SAP’s first chief people and operating officer.
“A successful digital transformation extends far beyond technology and processes, it is a business-wide culture change that starts and ends with people,” said Christian Klein, chief executive officer, chief operating officer and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “Sabine’s track record leading transformations at various companies, combined with her passion for people and leadership, makes her a natural choice to lead the complementary pillars of people and processes that are key to driving SAP’s ongoing success.”
At Microsoft Germany, Bendiek oversaw an increase in cloud growth of 50 percent in 2020. She also drove the move of the business to the cloud, which significantly contributed to Microsoft’s strong position in Germany and the enterprise’s overall transformation. Prior to Microsoft, she held various roles at industry-leading companies including Nixdorf, Siemens Nixdorf, McKinsey, Earlybird Venture Capital, Dell and EMC. Bendiek is a member of the supervisory board at Schaeffler.
Bendiek said, “SAP is recognized throughout the industry as a growth company and its people are crucial to its ongoing success. In any successful organization, business growth and the people strategy must work hand in hand. I thank the SAP Supervisory Board and Executive Board for putting their full trust in me to lead the people and operations functions that are the heart of SAP’s ongoing transformation.”
Bendiek, 54, has a graduate degree in management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a business administration degree from University of Mannheim.
She will be based in Walldorf and has been appointed to the Executive Board for a three-year term.
