(This story was originally published on Sept. 24. On Thursday, SAP shares fell the most since 2020 after its backlog for cloud services missed expectations.)
Christian Klein jogs onto the stage at SAP SE’s annual sales conference in a grey sweatsuit like he’s taking a victory lap. And in some ways, he is.
The 45-year-old chief executive officer took the helm six years ago just as the company’s sales were starting to stagnate. SAP — which makes software that runs finance, sales and other corporate functions — missed the industry’s shift to the cloud and was playing catchup. In one of his ...