Former SAP boss becomes CEO of ServiceNow

It didn’t take long for Bill McDermott to rebound. Less than two weeks after leaving SAP unexpectedly, the former head of the German company joined ServiceNow as CEO. He succeeded John Donahoe, who left for Nike. In order to smoothly handover with Bill McDermott, ServiceNow explained that John Donahoe will continue to serve as CEO during the transition period and will retain his seat on the company’s board of directors until the end of his term in June. 2020. After the departure of SAP board member Jennifer McDermott, Morgan and Christian Klein succeeded McDermott. The change in the CEO of Servicenow did not seem to please shareholders and Wall Street, because the stock price of this expert who manages services in a SaaS model fell 15% a few hours after the announcement.

Bill McDermott joined SAP in 2002 as a director of the North American branch, and later became the first American to serve as the CEO of the German company. During his presidency, he made several large-scale acquisitions, such as the acquisition of SuccessFactor, Ariba, Hybrid Qualtrics for US$8 billion or the acquisition of CallidusCloud for US$2.4 billion. He also helped launch HANA in 2011 and S/4HANA in 2015. Bill McDermott further increased the company’s annual revenue from approximately US$10 billion in 2010 to more than US$27 billion in 2019, while doubling its valuation to reach US$140 billion.