Shai Agassi

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Shai Agassi (Hebrew: שי אגסי‎, he was born in 1968) was a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG. He resigned from this position on March 28 effective April 1st 2007, 2007 to pursue interests in alternative energy and climate change. He was next in line for the position of CEO of SAP after Henning Kagermann vacating that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended till 2009 by the supervisory board. This led to the resignation of Shai who always was enterprising and looking to steer SAP from 2007.[1][2]

At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver, SAP xApps packaged composite applications, mySAP SRM, and SAP Business One. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-leads the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.

A software entrepreneur, Agassi founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001.

In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

Agassi graduated with honors from Technion where he received a bachelor's degree in computer science.

[edit] External links

Shai Agassi shares his opinions and musings in his blog on SAP Developer Network Blogs.