Patrick Hayati Appointed as Head of General Business and Partner Ecosystem at SAP MENA

SAP Moves to Strengthen Partner Ecosystem Scale and Influence

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates- September24, 2014 -SAP MENA has announced the appointment of Patrick Hayati as Head of General Business and Partner Ecosystem (GB&E).

Based in Dubai, Hayati will report directly to Sam Alkharrat, President, SAP MENA, and Luis Murguia, Senior Vice President - GB&E, SAP EMEA.

Sherif Hamoudah, erstwhile SAP MENA Head of Ecosystem, Channels and Telecoms, will now focus exclusively on heading up the company’s telecommunications business in the region.

Hayati has worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years, and boasts extensive experience of developing and leading businesses in emerging markets.

Hayati joins SAP from Protoz, where he worked as Vice President of Emerging Markets, with responsibility for developing a channel development program and a presence in emerging markets worldwide. Prior to that, he worked as Emerging Markets Managing Director for Belkin and as a Regional Director for the Middle East & Mediterranean at McAfee.

Hayati’s career has also taken in stints as HP’s Regional Director for the Financial Services industry, Regional Business Development Manager for Banking at Compaq Computer Corporation, and Sales and Marketing Manager for Banking at NCR.

“Patrick brings with him a huge range of experience and success to SAP, and we are delighted to welcome him onboard,” said Sam Alkharrat, President, SAP MENA.

“I am confident that his track-record of spearheading growth strategies and leading comprehensive channel development programs will be invaluable as we continue to expand and grow our GB&E business across the MENA region.”

SAP’s partner ecosystem has in recent years been enabled on a suite of  cutting-edge solutions, including in-memory computing HANA technology, mobility, and the latest SAP cloud offerings in Human Capital Management (Success Factors), Customer Relationship Management (Cloud for Customer) and Supplier Relationship Management (the Ariba network).

Last year, SAP introduced a co-innovation lab in MENA whereby partners can develop market-relevant solutions on the SAP platform. SAP and the partner then jointly take these to market.

In 2013, SAP's GB&E business experienced 65 per cent year-on-year growth, making it the fastest growing market unit in EMEA for General Business.

“SAP has a strong ambition to develop its general business and channel partner relationships and capabilities across an ever-growing ecosystem,” said Hayati.

“The potential is huge, and I particularly look forward to driving the up-take of emerging innovations in fields such as analytics, mobility, cloud and in-memory c