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SAP Innovation Awards 2022

2022 Judges Coming Soon

Meet the 2021 Judging Panel.


Judges Snowflake: NOTE: If the first SAP judges changes the code will need to manually be updated.
Thought and Community Leaders 
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Brigitte Zypries

Brigitte Zypries is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Between 2017 and 2018, she served as Minister for Economics and Energy in the government of chancellor Angela Merkel; she was the first woman to hold that office in German history. Brigitte had previously been Parliamentary State Secretary since December 2013, charged with the coordination of Germany's aviation and space policies. She was Federal Minister of Justice of Germany from 2002 to 2009 and State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior from 1998 to 2002. Brigitte passionately supports girls and women in business and technology and is engaged for the people in her hometown of Darmstadt.

 

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Carl Olofson

Carl Olofson has performed research and analysis for IDC since 1997, and manages IDC’s Database Management Software service, as well as supporting the Data Integration Software and Data Streaming Pipelines services. Mr. Olofson’s research involves following sales and technical developments in the structured data management (SDM) markets, including database management systems (DBMS), which includes non-schematic database management systems, data lake managers, navigational database management systems, low code database management systems, and memory-optimized shared data managers. Also covered is the database administration and development software market. He also contributes to Big Data research and provides specialized coverage of Hadoop and other Big Data technologies. He advises clients on market and technology directions as well as performing supply and demand-side primary research to size, forecast, and segment the database and related software markets.

 

Mr. Olofson has worked in the IT industry since 1978, including two years of application development consulting, 10 years of database and tools software development, four years of product consulting, and three years as a senior product manager. His career has been dedicated to effective and practical data and metadata design, development, and management for enterprises.

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Chandra Gnanasambandam

Chandra Gnanasambandam is a Senior Partner with McKinsey & Company, Inc. Chandra  co-leads McKinsey’s Global Software, Hardware and Services practices. Chandra was also the co-founder of Fuel, McKinsey’s practice that works with Startups and the investor ecosystem. Chandra focuses on serving some of the world’s large Cloud software companies on topics related to Product and GTM Transformations. Prior to McKinsey, Chandra held several operating roles at BEA Systems and Sun Microsystems. Chandra has graduate engineering degrees from Georgia Tech in the US and University of Saskatchewan in Canada. 

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Geoff Scott

Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG, believes that the connections we make for our members have the potential to become career-defining relationships that inspire innovation and success for their organizations. His forward-thinking leadership prioritizes helping our members make the most of their investment in SAP technologies. To that end, Geoff works closely with customers, members, the SAP Executive Board, and the extensive partner ecosystem to amplify the voice of the SAP customer. Additionally, he enjoys the time he’s able to spend with our
members at ASUG conferences, events, as well as in informal meetings.

 

Geoff has more than 20 years of leadership and technology experience, including seven years of extensive SAP implementation and operations experience. His background in the automotive, food, retail, and startup spaces brings valuable,
broad-based experience to ASUG. Past positions include CIO for TOMS Shoes,
where he led the implementation of SAP; CIO at JBS; and senior leadership
positions at Ford Motor Company. Before becoming CEO, Geoff was an ASUG member and served on the board.

 

Geoff has served on a number of philanthropic boards and is the founding member of the Denver CIO Executive Council. He is a proud Spartan and alum of Michigan State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting as well as his MBA. In his spare time, Geoff is an avid sports photographer in his
community and challenges himself to keep up his application development skills
by creating apps for his own enjoyment and use. Connect with Geoff on Twitter
@gscott16.

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Helge Sanden

Helge Sanden is the publisher of the SAP community portal IT-Onlinemagazin.de and founder of the 'Forum for SAP®', the largest SAP group on the XING business network with more than 32,000 members and aims to connect all German SAP managers, experts and top-level employees.

 

The IT-Onlinemagazin.de is a compact and entertaining guide, focussing on the economic benefits of matching SAP, partner and add-on solutions. And it offers suggestions and impulses for one's own area of responsibility in company environments.

 

Helge also presents this as a speaker at conferences and professional events, giving the idea of a beneficial community an even wider audience.

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Jens Hungershausen

Jens Hungershausen has been the chairman of DSAG since October 2020. Since 2012 he is CIO of the MEGA Group, a leading wholesaler in Germany for paints, varnishes, wall and floor coverings. Prior to this, he had been responsible for SAP processes and projects in various roles at MEGA since 1999.

 

The German-speaking SAP User Group (Deutschsprachige SAP-Anwendergruppe e. V., DSAG) is one of the most influential SAP user groups in the world. Its strong network comprises more than 60,000 members from over 3,600 companies, ranging from medium-sized businesses to DAX corporations, and representing all industries in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

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Jon Reed

Jon Reed is an independent analyst and Enterprise Irregular who blogs and videocasts on enterprise trends.

 

He is a cofounder of diginomica.com. Launched in the spring of 2013 by Jon and four other enterprise bloggers, diginomica.com provides original commentary and reporting on the digital enterprise. Jon has been involved in enterprise communities since 1995, including time spent building ERP recruiting and training firms.

 

These days, Jon is a roving blogger/analyst, and also counsels vendors and startups on go-to-market strategy.

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Larry Carvalho

Larry Carvalho is Research Director for IDC's Platform as a Service (PaaS) practices. Mr. Carvalho focuses on the cloud enabled application development and deployment while directing research into the component competitive markets of cloud platforms and application services, including integration, analytics, application development, data management, IoT and cloud testing.  

 

Mr. Carvalho has extensive experience in systems integration and the enterprise software business and uses that background to advise enterprise customers and vendors on the trends that are shaping the modern application deployment environment. He closely follows the emerging cloud platform services from companies including Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, Salesforce, SAP as well as the traditional platform and developer service offerings available in on-premises cloud deployments

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Laurie Ruettimann

Laurie Ruettimann is a former human resources leader turned writer, entrepreneur, and speaker. CNN recognized her as one of the top five career advisers in the United States, and her work has been featured on NPR, The New Yorker, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Vox. She frequently delivers keynote speeches at business and management events around the world and hosts a popular podcast focused on fixing work. She lives with her husband and cats in Raleigh, North Carolina.

 

Laurie keynotes events all around the world and is featured on major media websites where she shares wisdom about HR, hiring trends, and technology. Her next book called Betting On You: How to Put Yourself First and (Finally) Take Control of Your Career with Henry Holt & Company, is due out January 12, 2021.

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Owen Pettiford

Owen Pettiford has been working with SAP systems since 1994. His broad experience enables him to help clients understand how to implement SAP to maximize flexibility and value in ways that are approved by SAP. Since 2005, Owen has mainly worked to create architecture and designs based on the SAP reference architecture embracing cloud, APIs, in-memory and Fiori. He has completed 50+ SAP roadmaps across 12 industry sectors. After many years in consulting, Owen now works client side for Xoserve as a Senior Solution Architect and also blogs for Diginomica. He is also passonate about fitness in later life after becoming a qualified Personal Trainer at 50 and starting www.strive4.uk.

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Ronald van Loon

Ronald van Loon, founder & CEO of the Intelligent World a consultancy & research network of global thought leaders, analysts & influencers, and Advisory Board Member & course advisor for leading professional certification training company Simplilearn, is a frequent influencer & public speaker for significant AI, Big Data, IoT, and Data Science events. A globally acknowledged thought leader in the industry, he was ranked globally by Onalytica, GlobalData research & Verdict Media as Nr 1 influencer in Data, Analytics & AI.

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Sally Eaves

Prof. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer, Professor in Advanced Technologies and Global Strategic Advisor, Author and Speaker on Digital Transformation, Sustainability and Social Impact. She specializes in the application of AI, Cloud, Cyber Security, Blockchain, IoT & 5G disciplines for both business and societal benefit at scale. Sally is Senior Policy Advisor for the Global Foundation of Cyber Studies & Research and has founded ‘edtech' enterprise Aspirational Futures to enhance accessibility, inclusion and diversity in education, technology and beyond. 

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Tamara McCleary

Tamara McCleary is founder and CEO of global tech company,
Thulium, which harnesses artificial Intelligence, machine learning, data, and
analytics to drive smart social in the B2B and enterprise space. Tamara
describes her career path as anything but ordinary. From helicopter trauma
nurse in 1987 to cancer researcher in 1990 to bringing new medical technology
to market in Silicon Valley since the mid-90's, she serves as a unique advisor
to leading global tech companies Amazon, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, Dell, IBM,
Verizon, Mercer, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Cognizant, Citrix, and RSA
Security.

SAP Judges
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Amogh Umbarkar

Amogh Umbarkar is VP, SAP Strategic Customer Engagements, Industry 4.0. He is a business development executive with core competencies in innovation centric strategy, growth execution and managing customer success.  20+ years of Industry experience focused on Enterprise software growth, business strategy, innovative product and market strategy, thought leadership and scaling ecosystem partnerships. 

 

Specializes in bringing the right combination of industry expertise to drive continuous innovation by adopting Digital Transformation to create new business models. Amogh’s engagements put new ways of leveraging Industry 4.0, Intelligent technologies like Big Data, Machine Learning, IoT etc. at the core of driving measurable business outcomes. 

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Dan Lahl

Daniel Lahl, Global Vice President of Product Marketing at SAP, has extensive executive experience in cloud, data management, data warehousing and analytics.  While at SAP Dan has led Product Marketing for emerging technology initiatives, including Cloud Platforms, Data Integration, In-Memory Database and Mobility. 

 

In 2019 Dan was named one of the world’s most influential Product Marketing professionals by the Product Marketing Alliance. Dan is currently focused on growing SAP’s cloud Business Technology Platform business; expanding the reach of SAP’s cloud Database, EIM, Integration, Extension, and Intelligent Technologies portfolios.  

 

Dan has degrees from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago.  In his off hours, Dan is committed to his Church, his family, running and the gym.  

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Daniel Foerderer

Daniel Foerderer is Chief Operating Officer for Customer Engagement & Experience (CE&X), Customer Success. 

 

Daniel is responsible for securing, steering, and transforming the CE&X business while propelling the Customer First, SAP Second, LoB Third mindset. CE&X COO and his office enable and fuel the ongoing CE&X transformation, providing a consistent and scalable framework and service level across all LoBs as well as a strong interlock across the Customer Success board area and beyond – to reach our North Star, Customer Success.

 

Having over 15 years’ experience at SAP and a diploma in informatics and business economics from the University of Mannheim, Daniel is a senior executive demonstrating excellence in driving efficient business operations, successfully implementing frameworks and processes, and change management. 

 

During his career path, he has led several global teams and programs in Business Intelligence and Analytics, Governance Risk and Compliance, Corporate Audit, Maintenance Go-To-Market, DBS COO, and, lastly, acting as DBS Customer Success Services COO.

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David Samuels

David Samuels has over 25 years of experience in leading sales and marketing teams at high growth technology companies. As Chief Customer Officer in CE&X, David is building out customer engagement at scale throughout the customer interaction center and our digital center of excellence.  

 

David’s tenure at SAP started in 2013.  He was the Senior Vice President of Global Client Development at SAP Concur where he led customer success strategy and enterprise account management for our worldwide enterprise customer base.  David has played an integral role in deepening client relationships, leading sales teams to success and developing programs to improve customer retention and drive growth.David is passionate about customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention and sets high standards of performance to ensure his teams meet and exceed customer expectations.

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Esteban Kolsky

Esteban Kolsky has over 35 years of experience in technology and enterprise technology, having spent the first half as a consultant and practitioner, and the latter part before coming to SAP as an analyst and market influencer.  Since coming to SAP in late 2019, he helped create the new strategy for SAP CX, and is currently working on expanding the strategy for C4C as well as continuing to help with the overall strategy.

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Helen Dwight

Helen Dwight is Global Head of Marketing for Intelligent Enterprise and Industries at SAP, with over 20 years experience in the IT industry spanning regional, country and global roles based in the US, UK, Brazil and Latin America. Besides Marketing, her management experience spans technical pre-sales, product management and field/channel marketing. As someone that enjoys driving projects from strategy to execution, her passion is in helping clients and partners to articulate the real value of technology and use it to drive greater purpose within their own organizations.

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Karuna Mukherjea

Karuna Mukherjea, Vice President, Product Marketing at SAP, is responsible for product marketing for the SAP Business Technology Platform. Her product marketing team drives success in the market place through new product launches, product messaging and evangelism externally with customers, partners, thought leaders and analysts. They also support the execution of effective lead generation programs through new business and customer focused activities like events, PR etc..

 

Karuna has been with SAP since October 2008 working on an extensive portfolio of solutions in the Analytics and Emerging Technologies space. Prior to joining SAP, she worked in Product Strategy at Oracle on key technology solutions to support high value business processes. She has a master’s degree in Finance from Rochester Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in Commerce, Accounting and Finance from Osmania University and a bachelor’s in Commerce and Accounting from St. Francis College. 

 

Currently a Board Member and Trustee at Woodland School in California, Karuna is passionate about driving programs and initiatives that will bring Diversity and Inclusion in the workforce.

 

 

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Kathryn Holtz

Kathryn Holtz leads Customer Evidence at Qualtrics and is focused on amplifying customer success stories. Prior to Qualtrics, she lead the customer community at Outreach, a unicorn startup. Kathryn cut her teeth in Marketing at Tableau as the company’s first Customer Marketer and spent five years contributing to its global growth. 

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Katrin Lehmann

Katrin Lehmann is SVP and Head of Customer of Innovation & Maintenance for SAP SE. Katrin joined SAP in 2004. Since then, she has held several leadership positions, including Chief Data Officer and Head of S/4HANA Cloud Data Management. Throughout her career, Katrin has always had a strong focus on driving challenging topics to achieve customer success, operational excellence and a superior employee experience. Currently, Katrin is the Head of SAP’s Customer Innovation & Maintenance.


Customer Innovation & Maintenance aims to accelerate customer success through value-driven innovation and maintenance. With more than 3500 engineers and experts globally, Customer Innovation & Maintenance delivers end-to-end innovations and best-in-class maintenance, with the view of improving products, integrating innovations into standard/industry solutions, while focusing on long term impact for maintaining customer success. An agile-minded organization that meets market demand with fast-paced and tailored innovations in complex environments, while at the same time guides customers to become intelligent enterprises through continued long-term  support.Customer Innovation & Maintenance has presence in North and Latin America, Europe and the Asian Pacific region; including Greater China and India.

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Kurt Bauer

Kurt Bauer serves as the Global SVP of SAP Premium Engagement Services. SAP Premium Engagements with well-known brand names such as SAP MaxAttention is a key pillar of SAP´s Customer Success DNA. 


Kurt holds a master’s degree in applied computer science from the University (FH) of Trier, Germany. After having worked in an insurance-focused software company for application development and Oracle database administration, Kurt joined SAP in 1995. Kurt has held several engineering and management positions in different lines of business across SAP. He has grown a global network and gained experience from product development to solution implementation, from resolving critical customer situations to selling and leading global teams. Kurt also developed several patents for SAP in the area of knowledge transfer innovations. 


In over 26 years Kurt truly became a veteran for SAP, being connected worldwide and to SAP’s top executive levels. He is a 100% believer in SAP’s people and capabilities to jointly with SAP’s customers transform industries, grow economies, lift-up societies, and sustain our environment. His credo is: “Only our customer's success can be our success!”. That is what makes him run. 

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Marc Havercroft

Marc Havercrof, a member of the global leadership team for SAP SuccessFactors,  is responsible for the comprehensive corporate and customer strategy at the company's highest levels to maximize customer acquisition, retention, and growth. Marc drives digital transformation and business model innovation to support business, revenue, and market growth. 

 


His expertise includes corporate advisory & strategy for organizations going through a major change and new entrants into EMEA, North America, and APJ & Greater China regions from both green fields to M&A structures. 

 


He has worked across industries from financial services, Telco, Energy, media, digital social, to the public sector, with many of his solutions honored with industry awards. Marc is a Certified Fellow of the AHRI, CIPD and a member of the AHRI Council & Technology Advisory board, based out of Sydney, Australia & San Francisco, USA, operating across the globe for SAP.

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Michael Bruchey

Michael Bruchey has over 35 years’ experience working for hardware, software and consulting organizations. 

 

As a graduate of Florida International University, Michael started his career as a college new hire for a major computer hardware company as a sales representative. He has held Director and Vice President level positions at several leading software and services companies. 

 

Michael has been with SAP for thirteen years, where he has lead organizations focused on supporting the partner ecosystem. He presently serves as Global VP working closely with SAP’s largest and most strategic system integration partners.

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Michelle Craig

Michelle Craig is VP of Corporate Communications at SAP Concur and a strategic communications leader and business partner—guiding high-profile strategies and campaigns and driving global business results. 

 

Michelle leads a global team of communications professionals whose work centers on engaging target audiences, unifying the company’s voice, elevating the market, and thought leadership presence, and accelerating business transformation. 

 

Michelle’s earlier roles included senior corporate communications and agency leadership positions, working with both start-ups and established global companies in the tech sector, and leading creative programs and high-performing teams with results beyond expectations. 

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Neil McGovern

Neil McGovern has over 30 years’ experience in the software industry.  Neil leads product marketing worldwide for SAP HANA and SAP HANA Cloud. Neil has also led product marketing for the Data Warehousing, Mobility, and Financial Services teams for SAP. 

 

Prior to SAP, Neil ran marketing for Sybase’s top vertical, Financial Services. Neil was VP Engineering at New Era of Networks, and CTO of Convoy Corporation, where he was a pioneer in the Enterprise Application Integration market. Neil has a degree in Computer Science and an MBA.

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Peter Maier

Peter Maier is President of Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP. In his role, Peter is responsible for the SAP business with customers in their industries, making SAP and partner products relevant for them. The Customer Advisory group showcases SAP solutions and consults SAP customers on realizing the business value generated by the SAP portfolio.

 

Peter is passionately driving innovation that makes his customers more successful and he frequently shares his strategy and insights with customers, SAP partners, press, and analysts. He is regularly invited to deliver keynote speeches and to moderate panel discussions. In strategy meetings he advises leading customers how to become intelligent and sustainable enterprises in the experience economy.

 

Peter joined SAP in 1991 as a consultant for the chemical industry. In 1995 he assumed responsibility for global business development for the oil & gas industry. He is a valued expert for trends, challenges and best practices in the process industries and has earned the trust of strategic customers as an executive sponsor. Peter is connected to executives and experts from customers, partners, and influencers across the energy and natural resources industries and beyond.

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Richard Howells

Richard Howells has been working in the supply chain management and manufacturing space for over 25 years, and is responsible for driving the market direction and positioning of SAP’s Supply Chain Management and IOT solutions. 

 

Prior to joining SAP in 2004, he spent 15 years with Marcam Solutions where he was VP of Marketing for the companies Process ERP solutions. 

 

He has also implemented ERP and SCM systems at companies such as Nestle, Gillette, Colgate Palmolive, Rohm & Haas, Wyeth, Royal Worcester Spode and Dairy Crest. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Mid Glamorgan in the UK. 

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Sam Juneau

Sam Juneau s a former TV producer and journalist with deep content background in media and tech. After 15+ years in television, news and entertainment, he joined SAP communications as head of TV media relations and executive video producer. 

 

Sam now serves as VP, Head of Content, Customer Marketing, CoE at SAP. His team works to tell the most innovative customer success stories in multi-media formats, across SAP’s many channels. The stories touch every part of the customer journey from brand to adoption and renewal. The team’s mantra is simple, human, prescriptive.

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Seema Vishnoi

Seema Vishnoi is VP of Product Strategy in Customer Experience organization. Seema is passionate about innovation & adoption of SAP Products to help customers succeed in the digitally transformative projects leveraging intelligent technologies. She has played key roles in product and engineering organization, sales go to market, sales operations, Innovative business solutions and successfully lead various strategic initiatives with customers and within SAP. 

 

Seema is also an adjunct professor and teaches in the Villanova School of Business at Villanova University. She earned her MBA from Villanova University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Sciences.

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Sven Denecken

Sven Denecken is Senior Vice President, COO S/4HANA and Head of Product Successat SAP. In this role, next to the COO function, which is implementing business operations to developing the organization and its people, controlling, and communications, Sven is assessing customer and market requirements and supporting SAP S/4HANA's strategy. 

 

Sven’s many years of experience working with customers and partners together with an extensive network that includes the SAP field organization and industry analysts, enable the SAP S/4HANA development teams to respond quickly to changing markets to ultimately provide a solution that helps customers gain a competitive advantage.

 

As member of SAP´s executive leadership and closely cooperating with the respective teams, Sven supports the strategy of SAP´s solutions and its alignment with customers and the ecosystem. 

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Timo Elliott

Timo Elliott is an Innovation Advocate for SAP and a passionate advocate of using the power of technology to transform the world. 

 

For the last 28 years, he has worked closely with SAP customers around the world on new technology directions and their impact on real-world organizations. His articles appear regularly in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Forbes, ZDNet, and Digitalist Magazine. 

 

He has worked in the UK, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the US, and currently lives in Paris, France. He has a degree in Econometrics, is a published photographer and cartoonist, and holds a patent in the area of mobile analytics.

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Viji Doraiswamy

Viji Doraiswamy leads Marketing Strategy and Transformation for SAP Procurement Solutions,  and is responsible for driving key strategic programs and campaigns, to help businesses transform their spend management processes.  She previously led the Sourcing and Platform solutions portfolio marketing, and also spent significant time taking SAP cloud solutions to market in the Oil & Gas Industry. 

 

Viji has 15+ years’ experience in the technology industry, and has been closely associated with the procurement domain over the last 5 years. Prior to SAP, she worked with large-scale Banking clients at Infosys Technologies Ltd, plus she holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

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