SAP chief technology officer Juergen Mueller will leave the company by the end of September because of inappropriate conduct.
“I want to address an incident at a past company event where my behaviour was inappropriate. I regret being inconsiderate and sincerely apologise to everyone affected,” Mueller said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday. “I take full responsibility and believe stepping down is best for the company.”
Mueller, who is in charge of preparing the company to add more cloud computing customers and spearheaded SAP’s “business technology platform”, joined in 2013 and was named to the executive board as CTO in 2019. In April, his contract was extended until the end of 2027.
CEO Christian Klein will assume responsibility for most of the board’s technology and innovation activities and Thomas Saueressig will take over Mueller’s team in global security and cloud compliance, the statement said.
A representative for SAP declined to comment further on the nature of the incident. Mueller couldn’t immediately be contacted.
It’s not the first incident to raise concerns about the culture at SAP.
In 2022, two former female employees came forward saying they had been raped by colleagues during after-work events on business trips. They struggled to convince their own HR team that the sexual advances happened without consent.
Culture of harassment
SAP said at the time that it takes allegations of misconduct and criminal behaviour “extraordinarily seriously” and said it had launched internal inquiries and fully supported investigations with law enforcement.
Women have also previously complained about a culture of bullying and harassment that keeps female employees out of executive positions. — Sonja Wind, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
