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Gireesh Malhotra / San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Enterprise AI that survives contact with a business process.

Eighteen years turning enterprise platform capability into value a CFO will sign off on.

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Selected work

Gireesh Malhotra, Customer Success Senior Manager at SAP
Currently

SAP — Palo Alto, CA

Customer Success Senior Manager

Portfolio

$18M enterprise SAP cloud accounts

Focus

SAP Business AI — Joule, Joule Agents

Agentic adoption · BTP · Datasphere

Portfolio owned
$18M
Years
18+
Client segment
Fortune 500
Distributor capital freed
20%
02Approach

Capability is abundant. Adoption is the constraint.

I have spent eighteen years on the customer side of enterprise technology — first building data warehouses, then architecting analytics, now owning an $18M SAP cloud portfolio through deployment, adoption, renewal, and expansion. The through-line is that I get paid for what customers actually put into production, not for what they license.

That makes the current moment unusually interesting. Generative and agentic capability is arriving faster than any platform shift I have worked through, and the bottleneck has moved. It is no longer whether the model can do the task. It is whether the agent can be grounded on data anyone trusts, governed tightly enough that a risk officer will sign, and instrumented well enough that a CFO can see the return.

So that is the work: implementing SAP Joule and rolling out Joule Agents, advising architects on orchestration and human-in-the-loop design, modernizing the integration and data layer underneath so there is something worth grounding on — and then proving the value in a QBR with numbers rather than a narrative.

Currently customer success senior manager at SAP, Palo Alto, CA.

03The Landscape

Where the agent actually sits

This is the sketch I draw on a whiteboard about once a week. Customers arrive asking about the top tier. The answer almost always lives in the middle one, and the column on the right is what decides whether any of it reaches production.

03

Agents

Act
  • Joule
  • Joule Agents
  • Orchestration

Agents propose and execute. Scope is granted deliberately, and every action leaves an audit trail.

grounded on
02

Grounding

Know
  • Business Data Cloud
  • Datasphere
  • Integration Suite

Nothing above this line is trustworthy if this line is wrong. It decides the ceiling on every use case.

reads and writes
01

Core business process

Record
  • S/4HANA — Finance
  • Supply Chain
  • Customer Operations

The system of record. An AI use case that never touches it never made it out of the demo.

Governance

  • Guardrails
  • Human-in-the-loop
  • Audit
  • Value measurement

Not a layer on top. A column through all three, or it does not hold.

04Capability

What I am accountable for

01

AI & Agentic Systems

Where capability becomes a business process.

  • SAP Business AI — Joule, Joule Agents
  • Agentic AI integration & scaling
  • Snowflake Cortex AI
  • SAP Business Data Cloud
  • Machine learning
  • Predictive analytics
  • AI use-case discovery & value realization

02

SAP Platform

The landscape agents have to live inside.

  • S/4HANA
  • SAP BTP
  • Datasphere
  • SAP Analytics Cloud
  • BW/4HANA
  • HANA Cloud
  • Integration Suite (PI/PO to BTP)
  • C4C · SuccessFactors
  • S/4 Embedded Analytics

03

Customer Success

Adoption is measured, not asserted.

  • $18M portfolio ownership
  • Renewals, upsell & cross-sell
  • Adoption & deployment
  • QBRs & executive business reviews
  • Escalation management
  • Pre-sales & post-sales engagement

04

Delivery Leadership

Nothing goes live without a cutover plan.

  • S/4 transformation (MaxAttention)
  • Cloud migration programs
  • Agile & full-cycle SDLC
  • Program & risk management
  • Global team leadership
  • Change management & cutover
05Ledger

Where the eighteen years went

Expand any row for the detail.

Apr 2022 — Present

SAP

Customer Success Senior Manager

Owns an $18M enterprise cloud portfolio end to end and leads customer adoption of SAP Business AI.

Palo Alto, CA

S/4HANA · BTP · SAP Business AI (Joule) · Datasphere · SAP Analytics Cloud · HANA Cloud · Snowflake

  • Own an $18M portfolio of enterprise SAP cloud accounts end to end — deployment, adoption, renewals, and expansion — consistently delivering upsell and cross-sell growth alongside on-time VAT and sales renewals.
  • Lead customer adoption of SAP Business AI: implemented SAP Joule and guided rollout of Joule Agents, translating agentic AI capabilities into production use cases across finance, supply chain, and customer operations.
  • Advise enterprise architects and executives on how agentic AI systems operate at scale — agent orchestration, grounding on enterprise data via SAP Business Data Cloud, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop design — and partner with customers to integrate these systems into existing SAP landscapes.
  • Delivered a Snowflake Cortex AI engagement connecting SAP data with LLM-powered analytics, opening a new expansion motion within the account and positioning the data foundation for future AI workloads.
  • Ran BTP empowerment workshops re-platforming SAP PI to BTP Integration Suite and BW to Datasphere — modernizing the integration and data layer customers need before scaling AI.
  • Directed the White Glove database migration program moving HANA services from Neo to SAP HANA Cloud on Cloud Foundry across the portfolio.
  • Run QBRs and Balanced Scorecard reviews with executive stakeholders, quantifying value delivered by SAP support and services and surfacing solution-optimization and expansion opportunities.
  • Own project health — budget, resource allocation, risk mitigation, timeline adherence — and manage escalations of critical situations to resolution in alignment with SAP account teams and implementation partners.

Jan 2017 — Mar 2022

SAP

Analytics Delivery Lead — Utilities

Led analytics delivery for utilities-sector enterprises under SAP MaxAttention through their S/4 transformation.

Palo Alto, CA

S/4HANA · SAP Analytics Cloud · BW/4HANA · A4O · DWC · C4C · SuccessFactors

  • Led analytics delivery for utilities-sector enterprise clients under SAP MaxAttention, executing customer-focused best practices across systems and landscapes throughout the S/4 transformation journey.
  • Guided S/4HANA planning and implementation plus analytics transformation to C4C and S/4 Embedded Analytics, aligning solution design to each customer's strategic business goals.
  • Established the Cloud Database & Integration practice (application and data), which now contributes recurring SAP Cloud revenue.
  • Drove mass on-premise-to-cloud migrations on HANA across multiple clients; owned test strategy, change management, training, cutover planning, and go-live support.

May 2014 — Nov 2016

IBM

Analytics Delivery Architect / Manager

Owned analytics architecture and commercial delivery; won and delivered SAP implementations at Honda, VSP, and Abbott.

San Jose, CA

HANA · BW · Lumira · Design Studio · CRM · BusinessObjects Explorer

  • Partnered with sales account managers to drive revenue growth across a broad customer set; won and delivered SAP implementations at Honda Motors, VSP, and Abbott Labs.
  • Owned technical engagement and analytics architecture for business applications, integrations, DR and backups, archiving, content delivery, big data, and scientific applications; the team designed hundreds of SAP-based and hybrid architectures.
  • Managed commercial delivery — cost structures, deliverable tracking, and risk management — and led RFP responses for data warehouse, HANA, and legacy-system integration.

Oct 2009 — May 2014

Accenture

SAP Enterprise Solution Architect

Led a team of 11 transforming legacy reporting into SAP Analytics across logistics, procurement, and finance.

San Jose, CA

Data Warehouse · BW · HANA · BOBJ · CRM · Lumira · Explorer

  • Led a cross-functional team of 11 transforming clients' legacy reporting into SAP Analytics solutions for logistics, procurement, and finance — owning design, architecture, and migration cutover end to end.
  • Implemented a distributor-spend optimization solution that freed up to 20% of distributor capital, reinvested into sales-promotion activity.
  • Won and implemented projects at 3M, SRP, Procter & Gamble, and American Water; led RFP responses for BW, HANA, and legacy integrations.

2000 — 2009

SAP · Deloitte · HP

Earlier Career — Consulting

Program management and hands-on data warehouse work at Boeing, SAP Labs, and Silicon Laboratories.

Seattle · Palo Alto · Austin

Data Warehouse · Data Quality

  • Program Manager, Data Warehouse & Data Quality — Boeing, Seattle, WA (Apr 2007 — Oct 2009).
  • Data Warehouse Content Lead Developer — SAP Labs, Palo Alto, CA (Sep 2006 — Apr 2007).
  • Senior Data Warehouse Developer — Silicon Laboratories, Austin, TX (Mar 2004 — Mar 2006).

Enterprises served

  • Boeing

    Program management

  • Procter & Gamble

    Accenture

  • 3M

    Accenture

  • American Water

    Accenture

  • SRP

    Accenture

  • Honda Motors

    IBM

  • Abbott

    IBM

  • VSP

    IBM

  • SAP Labs

    Data warehouse content

  • Silicon Laboratories

    Data warehouse

06Engagements

Selected engagements

All 6 →

2022 — Present

SAP

SAP Business AI adoption — Joule and Joule Agents

  • SAP Joule
  • Joule Agents
  • SAP Business Data Cloud
  • S/4HANA
Context
Enterprise customers held generative AI capability they could demo but had not landed inside a business process. The gap was never model quality — it was orchestration, grounding, and the question of who is accountable when an agent acts.
Move
Implemented SAP Joule and guided the rollout of Joule Agents, translating agentic capability into production use cases across finance, supply chain, and customer operations. Advised enterprise architects and executives on agent orchestration, grounding on enterprise data via SAP Business Data Cloud, guardrails, and human-in-the-loop design.
Outcome
Agentic AI integrated into existing SAP landscapes as production use cases rather than isolated pilots, with governance and measurable value attached.

2022 — Present

SAP

Snowflake Cortex AI on SAP data

  • Snowflake Cortex
  • SAP data foundation
  • LLM analytics
Context
The account's SAP data was not reachable by LLM-powered analytics, which put a ceiling on every AI use case anyone wanted to discuss.
Move
Delivered a Snowflake Cortex AI engagement connecting SAP data with LLM-powered analytics.
Outcome
Opened a new expansion motion within the account and positioned the data foundation for future AI workloads.

2022 — Present

SAP

BTP empowerment — PI to Integration Suite, BW to Datasphere

  • SAP BTP
  • Integration Suite
  • Datasphere
  • BW
Context
Customers wanted to scale AI on top of an integration and data layer still running on SAP PI and BW. That layer decides the ceiling, so it has to move first.
Move
Ran BTP empowerment workshops re-platforming SAP PI to BTP Integration Suite and BW to Datasphere.
Outcome
A modernized integration and data layer — the prerequisite customers need in place before scaling AI.
07Writing

Writing

All essays →

What I have learned about getting enterprise AI past the demo — written from inside the programs, not from the sidelines.

08Contact

Get in touch

Direct

San Francisco Bay Area, CA. I read everything that arrives; I answer anything specific.

Useful for

  • Enterprise AI and agentic adoption strategy — moving from pilot to a governed production use case
  • Customer success and portfolio leadership for enterprise cloud accounts
  • S/4HANA, BTP, and Datasphere transformation programs
  • Executive advisory: value realization, QBR and Balanced Scorecard design
  • Speaking and panels on enterprise AI adoption