After nearly two decades of building business in the partner channel, Teresa Olszewska returns to SAP Polska on 1 December, taking up the position of Executive Vice President and Sales Director. The transfer of the former head of Gavdi Polska is a strategic move to strengthen the vendor’s position in the mid-market segment with her unique perspective of the ‘other side’ of the market.
The move is significant for two reasons. Firstly, SAP is reaching for a manager who is not only familiar with the software manufacturer’s corporate structures, but above all has stood ‘on the other side of the barricade’ for the past 19 years. Olszewska is returning to the organisation where she started her career, but this time she brings the baggage of experience gained while building the position of Gavdi Polska – one of SAP‘s key partners, and later within the structures of SD Worx. After SD Worx acquired Gavdi, she was responsible for the entire European SAP solutions business there from 2024.
Her return to SAP Poland is therefore not a typical promotion within the corporation, but a strategic move by Piotr Ferszka, president of the Polish branch. Olszewska is to be responsible for the corporate segment, i.e. companies in the growth phase. It is this area of the market – medium-sized companies looking for scalability and flexibility – that is currently the main battle front for cloud and ERP providers. The enterprise market is largely saturated, so it is in the mid-market segment that the game is being played for new margins and digital transformation.
Olszewska’s expertise in the field of HR (Human Capital Management) cannot be underestimated here. Before taking on strategic management at Gavdi, she was a consultant and Product Manager responsible for localising SAP HCM. This combination of hard product knowledge and years of experience in partner sales is expected to help SAP better understand the needs of customers who are often hesitant to enter large IT ecosystems.
In her comments, Olszewska herself emphasises the importance of this change in perspective. She points out that her aim is to use her nearly 20 years of experience working in the partner channel to improve the SAP-Partner-Client collaboration. For the SAP partner ecosystem in Poland, the presence on the board of directors of a person who is well acquainted with the specifics of their work, margins and implementation challenges, could signal an openness to a more partnership-based dialogue.
Piotr Ferszka describes this transfer as a ‘natural reinforcement’. It’s hard to disagree – with the increasing pressure to migrate to the cloud and the need to maintain the pace of innovation, SAP Poland is betting on proven names. Olszewska comes into the game at a time when the Polish IT market is becoming increasingly polarised between giants and local suppliers, and she will be tasked with convincing growing Polish companies that global solutions are within their reach.
