Google Cloud’s new Chief Executive Thomas Kurian is making good on a promise to revamp the company’s executive team, hiring former SAP SE veteran Robert Enslin as its new president of global customer operations.

Enslin replaces the incumbent Paul-Henri Ferrand in the position and will report directly to Kurian. Ferrand, meanwhile, will “take on a new challenge within Google,” according to a blog post authored by Kurian.

The new executive seems like a pretty decent catch for Google. He spent 27 years at SAP in a variety of executive roles before leaving the company last month, most recently serving as president of its cloud business group. He was also an executive board member, helping drive a massive expansion of SAP’s cloud portfolio and overseeing its $8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics International Inc. last year.

According to Kurian, formerly a key Oracle Corp. executive who only joined Google himself last November, Enslin will play a “crucial role” at Google when he starts work on April 22.

“Rob’s expertise in building and running organizations globally, business acumen and deep customer and partner relationships make him a perfect fit,” Kurian said.

Enslin’s hire follows Google’s Cloud Next conference just last week, where Kurian announced the company was “massively expanding our go-to-market organization” in order to improve both its sales and its technical support services.

“This is a great hire for Google, Enslin knows how to run a large global sales force as led SAP’s global sales for many years, delivering results,” said Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president of Constellation Research Inc. “His most recent role as President of the SAP Cloud business was a mixed sales and product development role. Seldom can you catch a sales executive with such a solid track record and with so many global customer connections.”

Photo: Google