Bill McDermott is chairman and chief executive of ServiceNow, the enterprise software company, after running SAP. He is pitching ServiceNow's AI products while investors bet that AI agents will hollow out seat-based software.
Bill McDermott is chairman and chief executive of ServiceNow, the enterprise software company, after running SAP. He is pitching ServiceNow's AI products while investors bet that AI agents will hollow out seat-based software.
McDermott grew up in Amityville on Long Island. At 16 he bought the Amityville Country Delicatessen for $7,000, and the business helped pay for his business management studies at Dowling College. He later earned an MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and completed the Executive Development Program at the Wharton School.
McDermott spent 17 years at Xerox and became president of Gartner in 2000. From 2001 to 2002 he was executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations at Siebel Systems. In 2002 SAP named him chief executive of SAP America. He joined SAP's executive board in 2008 and became co-CEO of SAP AG in February 2010.
On May 21, 2014, McDermott became SAP's sole chief executive, the first American in the job. SAP's market value rose from $39 billion to $144 billion between 2010 and 2018, and it made acquisitions starting with Sybase in 2010. He decided to leave SAP in October 2019, and ServiceNow named him chief executive that month, succeeding John Donahoe at the end of 2019. He also sits on the boards of Zoom and Figma.
In September 2026 ServiceNow shares were about 51% below their 52-week high on fears that AI agents hurt seat-based software, while McDermott reported no drag on sales cycles. He has repeated a $1.5 billion AI contract-value target for year-end, and defends ServiceNow's approach as craft over speed: “Anyone can vibe code a conversation.”
Sources · written 16 October 2026