When I first heard last month’s news that Has­so Plat­tner, SAP Chair­man of the Super­vi­so­ry Board since 2003, would com­par­a­tive­ly soon step aside, my imme­di­ate reac­tion was:

Thank you, Has­so, for everything.

Why? A host of rea­sons. Let me share just a few.

Has­so the Entrepreneur

With his co-founders — Diet­mar Hopp, Hans-Wern­er Hec­tor, Klaus Tschi­ra, and Claus Wellen­reuther — Has­so left IBM and built a com­pa­ny that was once a dream. He’s real­ly one of the ini­tial high-impact entre­pre­neurs. When you think about the Hen­ry Fords and the Thomas Edis­ons of the world, you should think about and thank Has­so Plat­tner. He took this idea of enter­prise resource plan­ning and made it what it is today. 

Has­so the Technologist

Whether direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, in the past or still in his roles as chair of the SAP Tech­nol­o­gy and Strat­e­gy Com­mit­tee and the SAP Go-to-Mar­ket and Oper­a­tions Com­mit­tee, Has­so has main­tained his tech­nol­o­gy and prod­uct influ­ence and impact. He’s added his touch to so many SAP home-grown or acquired solu­tions or part­ner­ships. He envi­sioned gen­er­a­tions of the SAP data­base and how SAP HANA devel­oped. And he was an ear­ly mover in design think­ing, in work at Stan­ford in 2004, infus­ing these prin­ci­ples across SAP.

Has­so the Visionary

Hasso’s reach extends from finan­cial soft­ware to design think­ing to ERP and more, always with incred­i­ble pas­sion and vision about hav­ing cus­tomers advance and progress with a data­base and tools that would move faster, pro­vide greater data access, and accel­er­ate busi­ness process­es and improve­ments. He saw the need for roadmaps that help users see and plan for the present and the future. With the com­mer­cial inter­net, cloud, and cus­tomers’ increas­ing­ly glob­al busi­ness needs, Has­so under­stood and deliv­ered what it means to be inter­con­nect­ed via Busi­ness Net­work, Intel­li­gent Enter­prise, and Indus­try Cloud. And he over­saw diver­si­fi­ca­tion efforts with SAP extend­ing into sup­ply chain, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, employ­ee expe­ri­ence — vir­tu­al­ly all facets of the busi­ness strat­e­gy and operations.

The Feb­ru­ary SAP board lead­er­ship announce­ment includ­ed Hasso’s wel­come and sup­port state­ment for his des­ig­nat­ed suc­ces­sor, Punit Ren­jen, who served as Deloitte Glob­al CEO from 2015 until retir­ing from the post last Decem­ber. ​“With exten­sive expe­ri­ence as a high­ly suc­cess­ful CEO of one of the world’s largest con­sult­ing firms, Punit brings valu­able insights and expe­ri­ence to the board. His deep under­stand­ing of our cus­tomers’ needs and the broad­er indus­try make him an ide­al can­di­date for Chair­man of the Super­vi­so­ry Board from 2024 onward,” Has­so remarked in the pre­pared statement.

Dynam­ics and Transformations

For now, Ren­jen is nom­i­nat­ed to become a mem­ber of the Super­vi­so­ry Board, with an elec­tion set for the company’s share­hold­er meet­ing in May. Going for­ward, I’m curi­ous — and sure­ly you are, too — to learn more about him. He’s step­ping out of con­sult­ing into a soft­ware orga­ni­za­tion under­go­ing a lot of tec­ton­ic change, as is every­body in a post-pan­dem­ic world. 

There are sev­er­al dynam­ics in play. Down the line, we will see a trans­for­ma­tion from one board chair to anoth­er. For now, with Has­so’s depar­ture, we say a fond farewell to not only a board chair but also a founder. Change will involve adjust­ing to a board chair who is more of a ​“board chair.”

There are and will be chal­lenges for this new chair. They will define and we’ll see: what do they want to do? What are their pri­or­i­ties? What is their lead­er­ship style? What does it mean to be board chair of this com­pa­ny, a Ger­man com­pa­ny, at this time? 

New Chair, Our Mission

On your behalf, I hope to meet Punit Ren­jen at SAP Sap­phire-ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence come May in Orlan­do or short­ly there­after. I want to hear what he thinks about user com­mu­ni­ties and what he thinks about the cus­tomer. I want to under­stand how he thinks SAP can help cus­tomers, our mem­bers, and orga­ni­za­tions get the most val­ue from their invest­ment. How will this new chair help us achieve our mission?

Also, in Orlan­do, just once more, I’d like to see and hear from Has­so. He spoke at the SAP 50^th Anniver­sary events I attend­ed last year in Ger­many. Has­so has been an annu­al cen­ter­piece Sap­phire speak­er. And come May, I want to let him know that with­out him, with­out the Has­so lead­er­ship, sub­stance, influ­ence, and style, many of us as cus­tomers would not be where we are today. While Has­so may step down as the Chair of the SAP Super­vi­so­ry Board, my guess is that he will still be involved in one way, shape, or form.

Thank you, Hasso.