Léo Apotheker (born 18 September 1953) is a German
business executive
A business executive is a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.
Executives run companies or government agencies. They create plans to help their organizations gr ...
. He briefly was the chief executive officer of
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
from November 2010 until his dismissal in September 2011. He was co-chief executive officer of
SAP from April 2008 until he resigned in February 2010 following a decision by SAP not to renew his contract.
During his tenure as chief executive at HP, the company lost more than $30 billion in market capitalization after a series of strategic missteps by the company, leading to his resignation. At SAP, which he joined in 1988 and where he spent more than 20 years, he played an instrumental role in developing and implementing a number of significant changes.
[
Apotheker currently sits on the board of KMD, Schneider Electric SA, Steria, and the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance. He previously served on the board of directors of GT Nexus. Apotheker is fluent in five languages: German, Dutch, French, English and Hebrew.][
]
Early life and education
Apotheker's parents were Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
who fled to the Soviet-Chinese border after the Nazis invaded Poland at the outbreak of World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.Aachen
Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants.
Aachen is locat ...
, Germany, where Apotheker was born. He later moved to Antwerp
Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...
, Belgium.[
By his own account, he organized a student strike in high school, and had two of his teeth knocked out by a policeman on horseback in the melee that followed.]Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
.[
]
Career
Early career and SAP: 1988–2010
Prior to joining SAP in 1988, Apotheker held several financial and operations positions at European companies.[
After joining SAP, he held positions of increasing responsibility; and in 1995 was promoted to CEO and founder of SAP France and SAP Belgium. Later in 1997, he became the president of SAP's South West Europe region; and by 1999, president of SAP EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) sales region.
He joined the SAP AG executive board in 2002 and was president of global field operations from 2002 to 2007. He was appointed deputy CEO in 2007, and promoted to co-CEO of the company in April 2008 to ensure a smooth handover from his predecessor, Henning Kagermann, when the latter's contract with the company expired. The succession plan was communicated in the business media early in 2008, including '']Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
'' magazine. The transition received praise as an example of SAP's corporate culture, "a seemingly contradictory mix of internal consensus and competition".
Apotheker's appointment to lead SAP was the second occasion, after 1997 Ron Sommer's appointment as CEO of Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...
, that a large German company was run by a Jewish executive whose parents escaped the Holocaust. "If SAP had a pre-war history, I would never have joined the company", he told ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
''.
Apotheker took an early opportunity to set out his vision for the IT industry, and explained enterprise software in layman's terms (likening it to the human nervous system), in an interview with prominent American journalist Charlie Rose. He also articulated SAP's commitment to sustainability
Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...
.
On 7 February 2010, the SAP supervisory board reached an agreement with Apotheker not to extend his contract as a member of the SAP executive board. With this decision, he stepped down as CEO and resigned from SAP.
Hewlett-Packard: 2010–2011
On 30 September 2010, the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
announced the election of Apotheker as the company's Chief Executive Officer and President, effective 1 November. He succeeded Cathie Lesjak, who was the company's interim CEO since 6 August, following the abrupt departure of former CEO Mark Hurd. Hurd had been forced to resign after an internal investigation into a sexual harassment claim (that found him not guilty) uncovered expense-account irregularities.Autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...
for a significant premium. Over the months following Apotheker's departure, HP eventually spun off the remaining webOS assets into a new subsidiary, Gram
The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a Physical unit, unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth of a kilogram.
Originally defined in 1795 as "the absolute Mass versus weight, weight of a volume ...
; backtracked on any plans to spin off its personal computer division; and wrote-down almost $9 billion related to the Autonomy acquisition, which it indicated was due to a lack of due diligence during the acquisition process under Apotheker.
On 22 September 2011, the HP board of directors replaced Apotheker as chief executive, effective immediately, with fellow board member and former eBay
eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...
chief Meg Whitman. Though Apotheker was CEO barely ten months, he received over $13 million in compensation: a severance payment of $7.2 million, shares worth $3.56 million, and a performance bonus of $2.4 million, although the company lost more than $30 billion in market capitalization during his tenure.
After HP: 2011–present
After HP, Apotheker returned to Paris. He, along with some private equity firms in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
, are considering investing in mature and distressed companies. In March 2012, he appeared on a conference call, hosted by Nomura Securities
is a Japanese financial services company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. (NHI), which forms part of the Nomura Group. It plays a central role in the securities business, the group's core business. Nomura is a financial ...
analyst Rick Sherlund.
Personal life
Apotheker is married to a Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
-speaking Belgian.
See also
* List of Hewlett-Packard executive leadership
References
External links
HP Executive Team Bios: Léo ApothekerForbes.com profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Apotheker, Leo
Living people
1953 births
German chief executives
20th-century German Jews
SAP SE people
Hewlett-Packard people
Schneider Electric people
People from Aachen