Matt Schwartz

Matt Schwartz, ‎IBM Global SAP Practice leader

Matt Schwartz is firmly from the management consulting side of the industry, starting out at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), first on the coding side, then with SAP practice in the mid-late ‘90s. He went on to work in the Price Waterhouse (now PwC) SAP practice. With the dot-com boom in full swing, he joined a couple of start-ups before joining SAP in 2004, where he would spend almost a decade. “I figured if I was going to be in the SAP ecosystem, why not join them?” Schwartz says. He followed SAP with a stint at IBM, then another management consultancy stint, this time at EY (again in the SAP practice). Four years ago, the call came from IBM to return to the fold. Schwartz came back on board to run the North America SAP practice, doubling business in a short period of time, before stepping up to his global role.

Garrick Keatts, IBM North America SAP Practice leader

Garrick Keatts is an IBM lifer, starting out at the firm straight from college as a supply chain consultant in the SAP practice. His work has taken him around the world in international markets (visiting 60-70 different countries), but always flying the flag for IBM and SAP’s unique partnership. He returned to the US to focus on SAP HANA before taking on the North America SAP practice leader role in May 2020. “I think what's interesting to me in that time period is what's changed and what hasn't. If I think back 16 years ago, so much of our work with our clients on the SAP front was about getting them transacting capability and allowing them to do that at scale with efficiency. Fast forward to today, so much of the priority with our clients is really more about insights and giving them a more granular level of insights at a quicker pace that they can use to make better business decisions. What hasn't changed is the fact it's still so much of our work is around giving our clients efficient transacting in platforms to drive their business and their growth at scale. It's created complexity in their landscape. And so it's still a lot about getting back to simplicity.”

Allan Coulter, CTO, IBM Global SAP Practice

Allan Coulter has been with IBM for 23 years. Having started out as an accountant (“incredibly boring”), he was given the opportunity after graduating from University to dabble in financial software programming – the company he worked for then started an SAP program….from here he joined PwC then IBM in the SAP Service Line.…”I starting off as a Finance Process Consultant then I got involved in some of the new technologies when they first came out, the likes of SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Portal and the likes…..I was always the person that was invited to check out the new stuff…. I was interested in how things worked, so I got involved in what was then called Basis…I combined all of this when certifying in Enterprise Architecture. I actually ended up with a really good balance of process skills and technical skills. I think this has ended up being crucial in the role I have now, as I get to see how technology is best applied to improve the way our customers deliver their processes….”

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