SAP CEO: European Tech Leadership, Cloud Innovation, and Performance Culture
In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
Norges Bank Investment Management
4.8 • 186 Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How does SAP build and scale the systems that global companies rely on every day? In this episode, Nicolai Tangen speaks with Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, Europe’s largest technology company and one of the world’s leading software providers. They explore SAP's cloud transformation journey, how AI is revolutionizing business productivity, and the challenges of technological nationalism in a fragmented global landscape. Christian shares his leadership philosophy on risk-taking and performance culture, along with insights from his remarkable journey from student intern to CEO before age 40. Tune in for an insightful discussion on the future of enterprise technology!
In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.
The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Kristian Haga.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, I'm Nicola Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and today I'm in |
| 0:05.4 | really good company with Christian Klein, the CEO of the software giant SAP. Now, SIP is now the |
| 0:11.7 | largest company in Europe, third largest software company in the world. And we own just under |
| 0:17.0 | 3% of the company, $9 billion, equivalent to 100 billion Norwegian crowner or 20,000 |
| 0:23.7 | crooner per Norwegian. |
| 0:25.1 | So it's a very big and important position for us. |
| 0:28.4 | Christian started as a student intern in SAP. |
| 0:31.6 | Like 20 years ago, he became the CEO. |
| 0:33.6 | Wow. |
| 0:34.5 | What a journey, Christian. |
| 0:35.8 | Yeah, but you see my quay has. |
| 0:48.2 | Thank you. Oh, wow. What a journey, Christian. Yeah, but you see my quay has. First of all, now, just to get a feel for the importance of SAP, |
| 0:51.8 | how much of the world's business touches an SAP system? |
| 0:57.2 | Yeah, Nicola, first of all, thanks for the trust into SAP. And indeed, it was a remarkable |
| 1:02.8 | journey the last four years. But of course, you feel, you know, that, you know, a lot of the |
| 1:07.7 | world's transactions are relying on SAP systems. And now, especially with the cloud, I mean, clients are very serious about, you know, how do we |
| 1:14.6 | want their most mission-critical systems. |
| 1:16.6 | And to your question, 80% of the world's, you know, B2B transactions won and touching an |
| 1:22.6 | SAP system. |
| 1:23.6 | Wow. |
| 1:24.6 | How many of the largest companies in the world? |
| 1:26.6 | Actually, 95% use one or the other SAP system. |
... |
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