As the co-inventor of SAP HANA, I helped redefine how businesses process and analyze data at an unprecedented scale. Now, I am embarking on a new journey—one that I believe will be an even greater technological shift than HANA for the SAP world.

The HANA Breakthrough

From 2006 to 2012, I led Prof. Hasso Plattner’s research project on HANA at the Hasso Plattner Institute. As a key driver of in-memory technology development, I played a pivotal role in creating SAP HANA, which later became the foundation for SAP S/4HANA. My work revolutionized enterprise computing and laid the groundwork for real-time data processing. My book, In-Memory Data Management, co-authored with Prof. Hasso Plattner, further solidifies my contributions to the field.

Why AI Agents are a Big Deal

After SAP, I spent a decade as Global Managing Director and CTO of Accenture’s SAP Business Group. I launched the Accenture Innovation Center for SAP HANA while driving over 150 S/4HANA projects.

Yet, I believe AI represents an even bigger revolution. While HANA accelerated data processing, AI agents take it further by analyzing data in real time, making autonomous decisions, and continuously optimizing processes. Why is AI a game-changer?

• AI doesn’t just store and retrieve data—it understands and acts on it.
• AI evolves, getting smarter over time, unlike static databases.
• AI isn’t just for enterprises—it’s transforming healthcare, finance, and beyond.

The Future of AI and My Next Move

Since my tenure at Accenture, I have co-founded Nova AI—a Silicon Valley-based startup focused on AI Agents for SAP Clean Core Transformation. Our autonomous AI system analyzes and documents legacy custom code, suggests proposals to fit-to-standard, and uses AI to reconstruct custom code in a clean core manner optimized for S/4HANA. Our founding team brings together deep SAP expertise, repeat entrepreneurs, and leading ML researchers from Google DeepMind and Meta AI Research.