SAS appoints Roderick Crawford as VP & Country Manager for UK & Ireland

In the context of a global pandemic and Brexit uncertainty, Roderick’s long-term strategy is to ensure SAS UK & Ireland cements its position as one of the key and largest regional business units outside of its headquarters in North America. 

Looking ahead to his first 100 days, Roderick commented: “I will focus on working towards two key priorities to uphold SAS’ commitment to fostering innovation, inspiration and value for its customers: first, I will meet with as many customers and partners as possible to understand their strategy and objectives, their desired outcomes and vision, as well as their views towards SAS. Second, I will be meeting with members of the SAS UKI team to make sure SAS continues to offer advice to shape outstanding outcomes for often unique and varied customer challenges.”

A new direction for SAS

Roderick will be taking over from Charles Senabulya, who will be taking on a global role heading up SAS’ transition to an X-as-a-Service model. This will begin with the creation of an EMEA Software-as-a-Service business unit. Both Roderick and Charles will report to Riad Gydien, Senior Vice President, EMEA.

“I would like to congratulate Roderick on his new role after his very successful leadership of the public sector team in the UKI region. He takes on this new challenge at a time when customers increasingly ask for outcomes, not for technology, which requires agility, short time to value and predictable cost of ownership,” explained Riad Gydien.

“It also means a move to subscription-based, consumption-based and service-led, managed engagements, or X-as-a-Service which is why I’m delighted that Charles is taking on his important new role. It is about more than putting SAS software into the cloud, engineering products differently, selling differently, and taking a different approach to customer support and success. We will need to rethink the way we do things at a fundamental level while putting the customer first.”

The appointments follow a period of transformational growth for SAS, which was recognised as a leader in the IDC MarketScape report for advanced machine learning software platforms last month. This latest recognition makes SAS the only vendor to be named a leader in the top four analyst assessments focussed on the AI and Analytics market in 2020.

Supporting employees under lockdown

Roderick’s appointment comes at a time where COVID-19 continues to disrupt businesses across the globe, along with our ways of working. With a second UK lockdown recently coming into force, supporting staff wellbeing remains a central pillar to SAS’ approach to its employees. 

SAS has been fortunate to have seamlessly shifted from the majority of employees working in offices, to maintaining the level of collaboration required to drive customer success remotely. Supporting staff’s physical and mental wellbeing will continue to be a central focus for the business, as well as making the home office as comfortable and ergonomic as possible. Having recently been named as one of the top workplaces in the UK and Europe by Great Place to Work, Roderick will is keen to build upon this recognition and commented: “I will strive to make SAS not just a great place to work, but the best place to work.”