William R. McDermott (born August 18, 1961) is an American businessman and is currently CEO of ServiceNow. Before ServiceNow, he was the CEO of the technology company SAP SE. During his tenure as co-CEO and CEO, SAP's market value increased from $39 billion to $156 billion. McDermott, along with Joanne Gordon, wrote a memoir, ''Winners Dream: A Journey from Corner Store to Corner Office'', and was awarded a gold medal for business memoir of the year by the Axiom Business Book Awards. McDermott began his role as CEO of ServiceNow in November, 2019.

Early years

Bill McDermott was born in

Amityville Amityville () is a village near the Town of Babylon in Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York. The population was 9,523 at the 2010 census. History Huntington settlers first visited the Amityville area in 1653 due ...

on Long Island, where he also grew up. He is one of four children to Kathleen and Bill McDermott and a grandson to Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame player

Bobby McDermott Robert Frederick McDermott (January 7, 1914 – October 3, 1963) was an American professional basketball player in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known as an outstanding shooter and has been called "the greatest long-distance shooter in the history ...

. At age 16, he bought the Amityville Country Delicatessen in Long Island for $7,000.

Education

McDermott studied Business Management at Dowling College. His deli business helped him pay for his undergraduate education. After completing his undergraduate studies, McDermott attended Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management where he earned his MBA, and then completed the Executive Development Program at the

Wharton School of Business The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

Career

Xerox, Gartner and Siebel Systems

McDermott worked for 17 years at Xerox and then became the President of Gartner in 2000. From 2001 to 2002, he served as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Operations at

Siebel Systems Siebel Systems, Inc. () was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications—notably Siebel CRM. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Pat ...

SAP

Ilham Aliyev met with Chief Executive Officer of SAP SE 02

In 2002, McDermott was appointed by SAP as the CEO of SAP America. He was designated to the SAP Executive Board in 2008, and in February 2010, he became the co-CEO of SAP AG. After four years, on May 21, 2014, McDermott became the first American to become the CEO of the company, now known as SAP SE. Since 2010, SAP's market cap has increased from $39 billion to $144.7 billion by February 2018. In 2016 McDermott became the best-paid executive leading the companies that form the German stock index DAX by earning a direct remuneration of €11.6 million. On October 10, 2019, McDermott decided to leave SAP SE. SAP did many acquisitions under his tenure, starting with Sybase in 2010.

ServiceNow

At the end of October 2019 after McDermott stepped down from SAP, ServiceNow announced his appointment as CEO. He succeeded

John Donahoe John Joseph Donahoe II (born April 30, 1960) is an American businessman who is the CEO of Nike. Early in his career he worked for Bain & Company, becoming the firm's president and CEO in 1999. He is on the board of directors at Nike, The Bridges ...

at the end of 2019 as Donahoe finished his tenure at the company. He cited "the company’s strength in cloud computing and enterprise software, and the challenge of building an already vibrant company further" as reasons for him to join ServiceNow as CEO. In 2021, McDermott was the 3rd highest paid

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of all

S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of ...

CEOs, receiving over $162 million in

equity Equity may refer to: Finance, accounting and ownership *Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them ** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business ** Home equity, the diff ...

and $3.5 million in cash and other forms of compensation from ServiceNow.

Awards and honors

In 2016, McDermott was named "Manager of the Year" by the German Business Daily '' Handelsblatt''. He has received numerous awards for his civic leadership, which includes: # GENYOUth's Vanguard Award. # City Year's Idealist of the Year. # The We Are Family Foundation's Visionary Award, # Children's Aid Society's Promise Award. McDermott recently was recognized as a top CEO by Glassdoor in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

Affiliations

McDermott is a member of the

Business Roundtable The Business Roundtable (BRT) is a nonprofit lobbyist association based in Washington, D.C. whose members are chief executive officers of major United States companies. Unlike the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members are entire businesses, B ...

Personal life

McDermott and his wife Julie have two sons. In July 2015, McDermott slipped and fell down the stairs while carrying a glass of water. The glass shattered into pieces, with one going through his left eye. He underwent "11 or 12 surgeries by the time it was all done", but ultimately the accident cost him his left eye. McDermott returned to SAP headquarters in October of that same year.

References

External links

McDermott profile
gulfbusiness.com, October 2012; accessed March 31, 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:McDermott, Bill Living people SAP SE people American technology chief executives People from Amityville, New York Businesspeople from New York (state) Kellogg School of Management alumni Dowling College alumni Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni 1961 births