We’re thrilled to announce that SAP CEO, Bill McDermott, will deliver the keynote speech at C3 2017, which will take place September 18–20, 2017, at the Wynn in Las Vegas.

Mr. McDermott has led an inspiring life from the earliest age, getting his first newspaper route at age 11 and wowing customers with his attention to service, delivering the papers according to their unique specifications. Even in that job, he doubled his customer base. The plot line continues along the same trajectory, getting jobs at a grocery story and a restaurant, until he famously bought a local deli at age 16, beating out the mainstream competition by catering to customer needs, which in this case, involved installing video games. At 21, after funding his college education with his prior successes, he was hired to his first corporate job at Xerox. The rest, they say, is history, eventually becoming the company’s youngest corporate officer.

Even in the face of major setbacks, such as the injury he suffered from a serious fall that permanently damaged his left eye, he has never slowed and never lost his drive.

In the official CallidusCloud press release, CEO Leslie Stretch commented: “Bill McDermott is precisely the right kind of speaker to inspire and inform our guests at C3. From his humble start to his current success, Bill has shown that hard work, thoughtfulness, attention to details, and leadership make all the difference. Combining those traits with powerful technology places you in a position to emerge as a winner, no matter the industry you’re in.”

McDermott joined SAP in 2002 and in 2010 was named co-CEO and helped lead the company to four consecutive years of double-digit growth by 2013. In May 2014, he became SAP’s sole, and first non-European, CEO. If you’re not familiar, SAP is a German software company, originally named “Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung,” which translates as System Analysis and Program Development. The company was founded by five former IBM employees in 1972. It debuted on the NYSE in 1998 and is now one of the world’s largest software companies, with more than 350,000 customers in 130 countries.

According to a recent CNBC article: “McDermott’s achievements at SAP are undeniable, but he still feels a little like the runner up… Is he an underdog or an overachiever? ‘I love that I was and still feel endlessly like an underdog. Because it keeps you humble to remember where you came from. And it keeps you hungry because if you stopped thinking like an underdog, anything you have achieved can and will be taken away from you if you neglect your responsibility to keep it.’”

If you’re interested in learning more about Mr. McDermott, be sure to check out his 2014 book, Winners Dream, which traces his amazing life story from buying a delicatessen at age 16 to becoming SAP’s CEO and lots of wild stuff in between. For example, he took his first post-college job as a salesperson for Xerox, where over the course of 17 years, he climbed the ranks to become the company’s youngest-ever corporate officer. From there, he switched companies to serve as executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations at Siebel Systems and next as president of Gartner, Inc.

McDermott is the latest addition to a stellar line-up of speakers, including HR pioneer Patty McCord and other internationally known thought leaders and business-technology experts from some of the world’s largest and most successful businesses.

This year’s event is expected to draw 2000 sales, marketing, learning, and customer experience leaders from around the world. To register for C3 2017 and learn more, visit our webpage at www.litmos.com/c3.