SUSE ropes in Melissa Di Donato as its CEO

Succeeding Nils Brauckmann, an accomplished technology executive and former SAP leader, Melissa Di Donato, has been named Chief Executive Officer of SUSE. The appointment is in a move that will herald the next phase of growth and momentum for the world’s largest independent open source software company. UK-based Di Donato will be SUSE’s first female CEO, effective August 5.

She has a proven track record in sales, business operations and leadership focused on high growth and transformation. Prior to SUSE, Di Donato was Chief Operating Officer 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 and was recognized for her contributions to growing global organizations by winning the 2018 Digital Masters Award for Excellence in Commercial Management.

“There is no greater honor than to lead SUSE into its next chapter of accelerated growth and corporate development,” Di Donato said. “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.”

Nils Brauckmann 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.

Under Di Donato’s leadership, SUSE will continue to focus on growth and expansion with the backing of growth investor EQT, a leading investment firm with more than EUR 61 billion in raised capital. 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. SUSE’s independence will continue to be aligned with a single-minded focus on delivering what is best for customers and partners, coupled with full control over its own destiny.