The Cloud ERP & Business AI Transformation Executive: A Role Brief

Most SAP transformations do not fail on technology. They fail on clarity, governance and the organisation’s ability to change. This is the role that exists to prevent that.

This page is a role brief, not an open position. It describes a senior role the SAP ecosystem increasingly needs, written the way we argue job descriptions should be written in Why SAP Job Descriptions Repel the People They Need. Employers are welcome to use it as a starting point. Candidates can use it to test their own profile.

Senior Vice President, Cloud ERP & Business AI Transformation, Strategic Customers (EMEA)

Location: Walldorf, Germany · hybrid · travel 30–50% · reports to the executive accountable for strategic customers, typically the Chief Customer Officer or Chief Revenue Officer.

The mandate

The largest SAP customers are deciding right now how they leave ECC, how far they adopt the new autonomous capabilities, and how much they let AI agents into finance, supply chain and HR.

This executive turns SAP Cloud ERP, SAP BTP, SAP Business Data Cloud and SAP Business AI into measurable outcomes for a portfolio of strategic customers. The role also carries the customer’s evidence back into the product organisation, so that what happens in production shapes what gets built next.

What the role owns

Transformation outcomes for a portfolio of top-tier accounts. The end-to-end cloud journey: the RISE or GROW decision, roadmap, governance, adoption and consumption, and the P&L of the portfolio.
The AI adoption agenda. Moving customers from copilots to agentic processes in finance and operations, with governance that is explainable, auditable and owned.
De-escalation and quality. Stepping into critical programmes, setting quality gates for go-live and cut-over, and reporting to board level when the stakes demand it.
The customer-to-product loop. Turning validation findings, release readiness and adoption data into roadmap priorities.
The ecosystem. Orchestrating system integrators, hyperscalers and software partners into one delivery model, with joint governance and co-sell.
The executive voice. Representing the customer view at CFO and CIO forums, advisory boards and analyst briefings, and in published thought leadership.
Talent. Building and coaching a multinational team of account, architecture and transformation leaders.

What it takes

Must-haves

20+ years in SAP environments, from R/3 to S/4HANA Cloud, including global template rollouts and ERP consolidation.
10+ years at Vice President level or equivalent, with experience across sales, services, support and development.
Proven ownership of strategic-account P&L and of multi-million deals.
Hands-on leadership of board-level escalations at large enterprises.
Executive oversight of product-quality or production programmes: release validation, regression testing, recognised quality standards.
Deep, current knowledge of RISE with SAP, GROW with SAP, Clean Core, SAP BTP and hyperscaler commercial models.
A clear, public point of view on Business AI, agentic ERP and AI governance.
Leadership experience on at least three continents, and fluent German and English.

Strong advantages

A finance background (FI/CO, treasury, month-end close) and a hands-on consulting start.
Experience integrating acquired cloud and mobile products.
An established external platform: publication, newsletter or a substantial professional network.

Everything else is learnable. Module codes and certifications are deliberately absent. This role is decided on judgment, not on labels.

What success looks like in 18 months

Every account in the portfolio has an agreed, board-sponsored transformation roadmap, anchored in business outcomes rather than a go-live date.
Cloud consumption and adoption grow measurably across the portfolio, with no open critical escalations.
At least three agentic-AI use cases are live in finance or operations, each with a named value owner.
A documented customer-to-product feedback loop has changed at least one roadmap priority.
At least one system integrator and one hyperscaler have co-signed the partner delivery model.

What the person gets out of it

A mandate that sits where the next decade of enterprise software is decided: between the customer’s board, the product organisation and the partner ecosystem. Few roles give one person all three views at once.

Next step

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— Andreas BORN

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