Christine Aboud and Jerad Lumina are speaking at SAP Sapphire & ASUG Annual Conference, May 11–13, 2026, in Orlando.

As SAP continues to roll out new features and encourage enterprises to adopt artificial intelligence, organizations are struggling to keep up—and find the staff with the necessary skills to stay ahead of the competition. 

According to the ASUG 2026 Pulse of the SAP Customer Research, 35% of respondents indicated that they have organizational challenges around keeping up with the pace of technology changes—up from 29% in 2025. Another 59% of companies indicated that their most important skill is SAP S/4HANA expertise, and 36% indicated AI and ML are at the top of their list. 

Training the incoming cohort of SAP professionals are numerous educators at both the collegiate and learning academy levels, and their schools are part of SAP University Alliances. These educators and their students also have the opportunity to be ASUG members and part of ASUG Campus Connect, which provides events and programming to build meaningful connections and expand knowledge of SAP. 

At SAP Sapphire and ASUG Annual Conference May 11–13, an ASUG Campus Connect panel will feature Christine Aboud, CEO St. Michaels Learning Academy/SAP Veterans to Work, Jerad Lumina, Director of SAP University Competence Center (UCC) Lubar College of Business at UW-Milwaukee, and Carolyn Szczurek, Communications Lead at ASUG, to discuss the influence that ASUG Campus Connect can have on a career—and be of assistance for enterprises seeking trained talent. 

Local Connections

ASUG Campus Connect events often coincide with ASUG chapter meetings, which take place throughout the year at the 39 ASUG chapters across the U.S. and Canada. 

Students involved in ASUG Campus Connect have opportunities to volunteer with the chapters, such as helping with registration and set up the tech needed to run presentations, so they can list this volunteer experience on their resumes; it’s always good to show involvement with an organization that’s related to their career, Aboud said. Oftentimes, lunch is provided during the meeting, providing a great opportunity to network with other local SAP professionals. 

Lumina has brought students to chapter meetings, allowing them to gain more perspective on the things they’ve learned in the classroom, especially hearing about the issues that local companies are facing. “It just kind of reminds them and kind of prepares them. OK, this is what I saw in class. How am I connected to what’s actually happened in the real world?”

He pointed to Chapter Chair Ron Gilson, a longtime ASUG Volunteer and former board member, who often shouts out students in front of the chapter audience, letting other attendees know to approach and help guide the learners. “That’s been beneficial, just having an enthusiastic chapter chair,” Lumina said. 

Lumina also often has sourced guest lecturers for his classes from chapter meetings, allowing additional opportunities for his students to connect to SAP professionals who are hiring talent like them. “I’ve seen a lot of success out of having guest lecturers who I’ve met out of ASUG,” he said, adding that as students land roles quickly, it builds up his program and boosts the university’s enrollment numbers, too. 

Pivotal Transition to Career 

Exposure through ASUG is a stepping stone for college students and veterans who are transitioning into the workplace and corporate America. 

Earl Bell, a former Army Sergeant First Class and now instructor at SMLA, shared that in his experience, ASUG Campus Connect has been a welcoming place to learn from and network with the civilian population. As veterans transition out of service and into the civilian workforce, Campus Connect is an important resource to those who seek a career with SAP technology. “It streamlines them into the community and resources of employers that are looking to mentor and pull them into their companies,” he said. 

“It really is connecting them to what a future in SAP as a career looks like,” Aboud added. As students—both veterans and civilians—look at a sea of people at a chapter meeting, they see both a diversity of people and industries. Everyone is representing different companies and using SAP in different ways, and it gives students a snippet of what their future might look like, while reinforcing that they made a good decision in choosing all these SAP classes, Aboud said with a laugh. 

And at every mock interview at chapter meetings, she has seen at least one or two successful job placements. There’s always a star student present, who starts their career at this first interview they use as practice. The rest who are present often are still encouraged to apply with their mock interviewer, or they’re connected with another company that is hiring. 

Connections at Conferences

Coming up at SAP Sapphire and ASUG Annual Conference, Aboud and Lumina are speaking on a panel about their experience with ASUG Campus Connect and everything it has to offer both companies seeking talent and students seeking employment. 

Lumina shared that at a past event, he wasn’t expecting to find more universities to join SAP University Alliances or ASUG Campus Connect, but there was a professor in the audience who expressed interest in getting the word out and continuing to build on the existing network. 

At this year’s ASUG Annual Conference, Lumina is excited to further that awareness of the ASUG Campus Connect program—and help connect students to jobs. 

Aboud is hopeful and excited for the conversations and connections that will come from those that attend the session, and she is eager to continue to provide connections between students and enterprises.

Especially now with the political environment, talent is more homegrown than years past, and “people are looking for where they can find the next wave of SAP talent and they don’t know,” Aboud said. “They just don’t know.” ASUG Campus Connect can help.