SAP to Appoint First Woman To Top Management

SAP is set to name its first female board member, a magazine report said on Wednesday, making the software maker Germany's second blue-chip company to appoint a woman to its top management.

Walldorf-based SAP will hire Angelika Dammann as head of human resources, Germany's manager magazin said in its online edition without citing sources.

Dammann, who previously worked at Royal Dutch Shell before heading human resources at Unilever Germany, will be formally nominated at the company's supervisory board meeting on Wednesday, the magazine said.

SAP declined to comment.

Some 60% of Germany's business graduates are female, but so far engineering group Siemens is the only blue-chip German company that has appointed a woman on its managing board.

In November 2008 Siemens picked Swiss-born Barbara Kux to head the company's supply chain management organisation. Some countries, such as Norway, legally require listed companies to ensure 40% of top management is female. Other European countries are considering following Norway's example.

Last month Deutsche Telekom introduced a quota system to ensure a third of its upper and middle management positions will be held by women by 2015.