Former SAP leader Melissa Di Donato has been named CEO of SUSE. Di Donato has a strong track record in sales, business operations and leadership focused on high growth and transformation. Prior to SUSE, Di Donato was COO and Chief Revenue Officer at SAP where she was responsible for the worldwide revenue, profit and customer satisfaction of the company’s digital core solutions. She also held senior executive positions at Salesforce.
UK-based Di Donato will be SUSE’s first female CEO, effective August 5, 2019.
“There is no greater honor than to lead SUSE into its next chapter of accelerated growth and corporate development. SUSE is at the cusp of a historic shift as open source software is now a critical part of any thriving enterprise’s core business strategy. We are well positioned to emerge as the clear leader of this shift, with our ability to power digital transformation for our customers at their own pace and with agile, enterprise-grade open source solutions, edge to core to cloud. What is unmistakable is our unlimited ability to deliver value to our community, customers, partners and shareholders – all of whom have been the bedrock of SUSE’s success. As exciting as SUSE’s growth and innovation have been over the past several years, we are just getting started,” said Di Donato.
Di Donato succeeds Nils Brauckmann, who has announced his retirement. During his tenure as CEO of SUSE, Brauckmann delivered eight years of continuous expansion including a substantial increase during FY18, a year which saw record-breaking revenues.
“I am incredibly proud of SUSE’s progress and growth over the last eight years, which has culminated in it securing independent status. With this chapter of SUSE’s corporate development complete, I could not be more pleased to hand off the leadership of SUSE to Melissa. She is a proven and dynamic change agent, and many of her achievements have occurred in subscription businesses that exist in high-growth cloud environments. Melissa is someone I am confident will lead SUSE to realize its fullest potential,” said Brauckmann.
Under Di Donato’s leadership, SUSE will continue to focus on growth and expansion with the backing of growth investor EQT. As the company’s new CEO, she will focus on SUSE’s commercial success and innovation in its core business as well as in emerging technologies, both organically and through add-on acquisitions.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Nils for his deep dedication and all his accomplishments as SUSE’s CEO. Nils has successfully led the company to what it is today, and he hands over the business in good shape, with 2018 in many ways marking a top year in the company’s history. SUSE is well positioned to capitalize on its status as the world’s largest independent open source company, powering digital transformation with agile, enterprise-grade open source solutions, edge to core to cloud. In Melissa Di Donato I am confident we have found an outstanding CEO with a proven track record of success that speaks for itself. It is expected that SUSE’s delivery against its mission will gain pace under Melissa’s leadership,” said Jonas Persson, Chairman of SUSE’s Board.
