OREANDA-NEWS. SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced the appointment of Rob Hetherington as the new global head of the Financial Services Industries organization of SAP.

In this role, Hetherington will be responsible for leading the business strategy for SAP in financial services, which includes banking, insurance and capital market deployments across the globe. Hetherington succeeds Ross Wainwright, who has been appointed general manager and global lead for SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition, at SuccessFactors, an SAP company.

“Rob has a proven track record in the financial services sector and is uniquely suited to take on this global role as the head of SAP’s Financial Services Industries organization,” said Pat Bakey, president, Industry Cloud, SAP. “Thanks to his outstanding industry knowledge and international background, he will provide the direction and the leadership necessary to continue our growth in this strategic area of SAP.”

Hetherington will lead a team dedicated to executing the customer-centric and innovation-driven strategy of SAP in financial services. His organization´s objective is to help customers transform their legacy applications and architecture to meet industry challenges and accelerate their modernization, standardization and innovation programs. Previously, Hetherington served as general manager of the financial services business for SAP in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In this role, he drove and built a scalable and innovative business across EMEA that used the full set of SAP industry solutions, specialist solutions, services and maintenance features. Hetherington has worked as a banker and a consultant internationally across Europe, the United States and southern Africa.

“Legacy applications and architecture continue to be an obstacle to the increasing demands placed on our financial services customers,” said Hetherington. “I look forward to expanding SAP´s progress towards helping customers not only transform their businesses, but also enabling these clients to exceed the expectations of their customers.”

As a result of Hetherington’s appointment, Laurence Leyden will take over as general manager for the financial services business in EMEA with immediate effect.