People in September 2022

New addition to Workday

Christopher Knörr joined Workday as Group Vice President for DACH on July 1, 2022, and will be responsible for executing the business strategy for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Together with his leadership team in DACH, consisting of Uta Ernst-Diarra, Managing Director Germany, and Frederic Alran, Managing Director for Austria and Switzerland, Knörr is responsible for achieving Workday's growth objectives in the region.

He reports directly to Carolyn Horne, President of EMEA. "I am very excited to start at Workday and lead the DACH organization. We are seeing a rapidly changing market and a new generation of CFOs, CHROs and CIOs looking for agile and innovative cloud solutions. Workday's product portfolio positions the company well to deliver these solutions." says Knörr.

Together with his leadership team, Christopher Knörr will be responsible for executing Workday's business strategy in his role as Group Vice President DACH.

He has been working in the ERP market for midmarket and large enterprises for almost 25 years. Previously, he was part of the senior leadership team at SAP Germany with responsibility for the CX portfolio. He also has extensive international experience: Between 2009 and 2011, he led indirect channel and partner management for midmarket SAP customers in Asia Pacific and Japan. From 2012 to 2013, he led SAP Commercial Sales for Scandinavia, Benelux, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to joining SAP, he worked for PeopleSoft from 2002 to 2006. He holds a dual degree in business administration.

Barbara Koch joins Tech Data

Barbara Koch is the new senior vice president and regional managing director for Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH) at Tech Data. Koch was previously responsible for the national company in Germany and headed the Advanced Solutions division in DACH. From mid-2018, her role was expanded to cover the entire DACH region. Since August 2021, the experienced manager has held the position of Managing Director of Tech Data Germany. In her new role, she will be a member of Tech Data's European Executive Board (EEB) and report to Patrick Zammit, President Europe and APJ.

Patrick Zammit commented: "It gives me great pleasure to welcome Barbara as the new Head of our Business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She has a long track record in senior positions within our company and is a highly respected and recognized figure in the IT channel both in her region and across Europe. I look forward to working with her to build on the strong foundation and drive our business strategy in the region."

Barbara Koch comments: "I am very excited to take over the DACH region and look forward to the tasks ahead." From August 2022, Michael Görner, previously responsible for the German business of the Advanced Solutions division, will assume the role of Vice President Advanced Solutions in the DACH region as Koch's successor.

With the departure of Michael Dressen, Barbara Koch takes over responsibility for the entire DACH region at Tech Data as Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

New CPO at Natuvion

Digital platform transformation specialist Natuvion has a new chief people officer (CPO): Volker Westedt. With Westedt, the company gains a people and culture expert with many years of HR experience in international corporations and start-ups. After working as a senior and executive manager in the HR departments of Zalando, Deutsche Bahn, Brainloop and Tipico, and as an independent lawyer and consultant, he was most recently interim Head of HR Germany at Wolt. Volker Westedt will become part of Natuvion's management team and will thus be responsible for the company's national and international HR topics in this newly created role.

He takes on a challenging role at a transformation services provider that is already one of Europe's fastest growing companies for the fourth year in a row. "With Volker, we have the experienced support we need to implement our strategy and continue to achieve our ambitious goals," comments Holger Strotmann, founder and CEO of Natuvion. Data transformation is supported by Natuvion DCS, a software developed in-house.

Netz98 expands SAP strategy

Timo Rüb joins the Mainz-based e-commerce agency Netz98, a Valantic company, as an SAP specialist. Rüb has 20 years of experience in the SAP environment and is one of the best-known specialists in the field of SAP interfaces and business integration. As Vice President of Valantic, however, he is responsible for the system integration of Adobe Commerce and SAP, particularly for Netz98. The focus here is on the further development of a consistent SAP connector for e-commerce that can be adapted to any customer requirement, while ensuring maximum performance and the highest quality of data transfer.

After completing his dual studies specializing in interface technologies, Timo Rüb worked as an SAP consultant and managing director at various companies, among other positions. For most of his career, and until recently, he worked as managing partner of Conceto in the areas of ERP, S/4 migration and interfaces. From his many years of experience, Rüb knows: "Seamless integration of systems is key to successful end-to-end processes and a must-have for successful e-commerce. This is exactly where Netz98 adds value to customers."

"Seamless integration of systems is key to successful end-to-end processes and a must-have for successful e-commerce. This is exactly where Netz98 adds value to customers."

New CEO at Red Hat

Matt Hicks has been named president and chief executive officer of Red Hat. Previously Red Hat's executive vice president of products and technologies, he now succeeds Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of the company. Hicks, who is known as a seasoned executive, joined the company in 2006 as a developer on the IT team. He quickly assumed leadership positions throughout the company. Hicks was also one of the founding members of the Red Hat OpenShift development team, which has become the backbone for hybrid cloud deployments across many industries. Since then, he has filled a pioneering role for hybrid cloud computing and the company's product strategy.

As executive vice president of products and technologies, Hicks was responsible for Red Hat's overall product strategy and development. In particular, under Hicks' leadership, the open hybrid cloud strategy has been expanded to help customers build, deploy and manage any application anywhere. This includes new managed cloud services and new security approaches for hybrid cloud environments.

Matt Hicks has been named president and chief executive officer of Red Hat. Previously Red Hat's executive vice president of products and technologies, he now succeeds Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of the company.

Since January 2022 had Timo Lehne already held the position as interim CEO - now the staffing services provider SThree announced his appointment as permanent Chief Executive Officer. Timo Lehne has been part of the company since 2006. Previously, he was responsible for the DACH business.

Tony Klimas becomes Horváth's new Partner and President in the USA. Klimas brings 25 years of consulting experience with a finance specialization and was most recently a partner at EY. The further development of the U.S. business will be driven from the European side according to Horváth's Collaboration Model.

Catherine Solazzo joins Syntax as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With over 18 years of experience in IT channel sales and extensive expertise in next-generation marketing and business transformation, the expert is expected to make an important contribution to Syntax's continued growth.

Andreas Brand is the new authorized signatory at Swan. In his new role as Director SAP Realization, Brand now has full power of attorney for the company. This gives him the authority to represent Swan externally with legal effect. Recruiting is also a high priority in Brand's area of responsibility.

Global IT services provider NTT Ltd. is strengthening its management team in Austria with a long-standing employee: Robert Zillner has already been working for NTT for eight years, among other things as Controller and Senior Finance Manager. He has now been appointed to the Executive Board as Vice President Finance.

Since 2021 Holger Bergens at Deskcenter as Team Leader Professional Services. Now he has been appointed to the management team. As Chief Services Officer (CSO), Bergens is responsible for the Customer Support, Presales and Internal IT departments.