Dilipkumar Khandelwal joins this year’s list of executives leaving SAP. He follows the consecutive departures of SAP executives Robert Enslin, President of its Cloud Business Group, and Bernd Leukert, Executive Board Member and a co-lead of the SAP Digital Business Services.
Dilipkumar Khandelwal, President of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and Managing Director of SAP Labs India, has resigned from the German software giant after 18 years of service. In his tenure, he has helped the local unit become the multinational’s second-largest globally.
Sindhu Gangadharan, a Senior Vice President and another SAP long-timer, will succeed Khandelwal, starting September as confirmed by a company spokesperson.
Khandelwal said:
“I have decided to move out of the corporate world and focus my energy and undivided attention to nurturing and helping the startup ecosystem. It is an action-packed time now in the startup world in India and I want to be amidst the action. I will also continue to invest in early-stage and growth-stage companies and seek opportunities in the VC and PE space to leverage my skills and leadership.”
Explaining how he is invested in helping startups in his capacity, he said:
“I will evaluate what is best in terms of the startup ecosystem.”
The HEC President is known to be an active angel investor who has backed startups such as Whatfix, Loadshare, Signzy, Moglix and Fablestreet and a limited venture capital partner in Fireside Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners.
In SAP, he was performing a commendable dual role, including that of the global President of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) Organization, which provides key cloud infrastructure for the company. Khandelwal is credited with growing the Hana Enterprise Cloud (HEC) to nearly $1billion service offering. Ironically, he also spearheaded the SAP Startup Studio, the SAP’s accelerator programme to incubate startups.
Having started as a Technology Consultant in SAP, his appointment as the President of HEC is a huge accomplishment for the Indian leader. He has reported to Bernd Leukert then to Christian Klein, Chief Operating Officer and member of the Executive Board after Leukert left SAP.
Khandelwal has written a promising article in TechObserver saying that 2019 will be the year of Intelligent Tech Renaissance. Out of the 10 trends that Gartner predicted for this year, he said:
“I expect to see the most significant changes coming from intelligent technologies this year, specifically Autonomous Things, Augmented Analytics, and AI-Driven Development. Organizations will be able to start morphing from a digital business to an intelligent enterprise.”
The fiscal year is far from over. Indeed, the startup universe has a lot to gain having Khandelwal in their league, a distinguished leader with 20 years of experience in the enterprise software industry.
