Jim Fisher joins SAP in Australia from Southeast Asia where he established a strong team that now drives more than half of SAP’s revenue in a number of countries in the region.

In the Australian role, Fisher succeeds John Ruthven, who has been promoted to president and managing director for SAP ANZ. Fisher is responsible for leading SAP’s local Presales, Industry Value Engineering and Sales Operations teams.

Fisher, has more than 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, managing and directing sales and marketing operations teams throughout the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region in previous roles including vice president of channel sales for CA Technologies APJ, vice president at Sterling Software APJ and, here in Australia as managing director at Information Advantage.

“Equipping our customers to thrive in an increasingly digital and global economy is at the heart of the SAP business,” said Ruthven.

“As we continue to grow with our customers in Australia and New Zealand, Jim’s experience and track record in driving successful organisations will be invaluable in his tenure as COO. We look forward to the contributions he and his team will deliver to our business, and to our partners and customers.”

“It is an exciting time to work with Australian and New Zealand organisations as they continue on their path of digital transformation,” Fisher said.

“When it comes to innovation, there are a number of first movers here across technologies such as cloud, the Internet of Things and our SAP HANA platform. I look forward to simplifying how the SAP team engages with and enables our customers to be more successful in an increasingly digital and global economy.”