SAP CTO Vishal Sikka named "Corporate Officer"

Vishal Sikka, SAP's CTO, was named a "Corporate Officer" by the SAP Supervisory Board. This is like getting "tenure" in an academic environment, and signals a significant increase in his authority, as well as a recognition of his accomplishments. Vishal really created the centralized architecture function at SAP, and has been very influential in all product groups at SAP. He is the first CTO in SAP's history, and the first person of Indian ethnicity to be appointed to a corporate officer role at SAP (as far as I know). This also creates a very real possibility that Vishal will be appointed to SAP's Supervisory Board (like the Board of Directors in American companies) in the future.

Congratulations to Vishal! The internal announcement follows:

Dear Colleagues,

I have the pleasure of announcing that the SAP Supervisory Board named Vishal Sikka an SAP Corporate Officer and a member of the SAP Executive Council at the end of July.
This appointment recognizes Vishal's contribution in forming the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (oCTO) as a unit that provides technical leadership to the company and thereby helps SAP secure a competitive advantage in the field of enterprise solutions.

In addition, his appointment recognizes both the role that Vishal has personally played and will continue to play in architecting SAP offerings into Timeless Software, and as a key spokesperson representing SAP as a technology thought leader, both internally and externally.

Vishal will continue to serve as SAP’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and report to me.
Prior to becoming the CTO of SAP in 2007, Vishal was the senior vice president of architecture and chief software architect at SAP, responsible for the road map and direction for the architecture of SAP's products and infrastructure. Before that, he was head of the advanced technology group responsible for strategic innovative projects.

Vishal holds a doctoral degree in computer science from Stanford University in California, and his experience includes research in automatic programming, information and application integration, and artificial intelligence at Stanford, at Xerox Labs in Palo Alto, and at two startup companies.

Please join me in congratulating Vishal!

Best regards,
Léo