SAP SE announces mutual departure with chairman nominee Punit Renjen

SAP SE, Europe’s largest software company, said it had mutually agreed to part ways with Punit Renjen, the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu executive it had nominated for the chairman role a year ago.

Renjen and SAP had a “difference in perspective on the role,” the German company said in a statement late Sunday. Renjen was due to succeed SAP’s Hasso Plattner at the end of his term in May.

Instead, the company will propose former Nokia Oyj President Pekka Ala-Pietilä for the role, it said in the statement. Ala-Pietilä was previously a member on the SAP supervisory board. Renjen will resign his mandate from the supervisory board at SAP’s annual general meeting in May. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

German newspaper Handelsblatt had reported that Renjen was likely to be replaced as nominee earlier on Sunday. Plattner, 80, co-founded the software company in 1972 and had served as chairman for more than two decades. Bloomberg