Effective immediately, Wainwright will be responsible for SAP's financial services footprint, which covers banking, insurance and capital markets clients across the globe.

"As an integral member of the financial services industries senior leadership team, Ross brings extensive experience helping customers to execute on transformation initiatives," said Simon Paris, global head of Strategic Industries, SAP. "He will provide the leadership and direction necessary to accelerate our growth in the financial services sector."

Wainwright will lead a team dedicated to executing on SAP's customer-centric and innovation-driven strategy in financial services. His team's objective is to help customers transform their legacy applications and architecture to meet industry challenges and accelerate their modernization, standardization and innovation programs. Wainwright will report directly to Paris, who previously held the position and has transitioned into a newly established role as global head of strategic industries, covering financial services industries, retail and public services. The strategic industries team will provide customers with a streamlined customer engagement model and foster co-innovation with customers and partners.

Previously, Wainwright served as global head of financial services, managing the professional services business. In this role he oversaw a global team of consultants and sales contributors and engaged with executives from banking and insurance companies to drive their business transformations. Prior to this, he served as chief operating officer of SAP North America. Before joining SAP in 2002, Wainwright served in a number of senior software sales management positions in Canada and across the U.S. for Parametric Technology Corporation, where he represented the company's mechanical engineering and product life-cycle management solutions for the high-tech vertical. Wainwright received a bachelor's degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and will be based in Chicago.