[3] At SAP, which he joined in 1988 and where he spent more than 20 years, he played an instrumental role in developing and implementing a number of significant changes.

[4] Apotheker's parents were Polish Jews who fled to the Soviet-Chinese border after the Nazis invaded Poland at the outbreak of World War II.

[4] Prior to joining SAP in 1988, Apotheker held several financial and operations positions at European companies.

[8] The transition received praise as an example of SAP's corporate culture, "a seemingly contradictory mix of internal consensus and competition".

[10] Apotheker took an early opportunity to set out his vision for the IT industry, and explained enterprise software in layman's terms (likening it to the human nervous system), in an interview with prominent American journalist Charlie Rose.

On 30 September 2010, the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard announced the election of Apotheker as the company's Chief Executive Officer and President, effective 1 November.

Hurd had been forced to resign after an internal investigation into a sexual harassment claim (that found him not guilty) uncovered expense-account irregularities.

It dropped nearly 25% on 19 August 2011 after HP announced a number of seemingly abrupt strategic decisions: to discontinue its webOS device business (mobile phones and tablet computers), to begin planning to divest its personal computer division, and to acquire British software firm Autonomy for a significant premium.

[15] Over the months following Apotheker's departure, HP eventually spun off the remaining webOS assets into a new subsidiary, Gram; backtracked on any plans to spin off its personal computer division; and wrote-down almost $9 billion related to the Autonomy acquisition, which it indicated was due to a lack of due diligence during the acquisition process under Apotheker.