Oliver Schabenberger, chief technology officer at SAS, is taking on the role as chief operating officer and thus becomes the No. 2 executive at the Cary-based software firm. CEO and co-founder Jim Goodnight disclosed the news publicly today.

“We need strong alignment between product and revenue generating operations to carry out our ambitious plans for growth and strategic investments,” Goodnight said in the announcement.

“Oliver has proven to be an exceptional and transformative leader who lives the company values and exemplifies our culture of innovation – qualities that make him the ideal person for this position.”

A spokesperson for SAS pointed out that the news was not in any way an indication that Goodnight is planning to retire. One of the world’s richest people with a net worth of some $10 billion according to Forbes magazine, Goodnight turns 75 on Jan. 6.

Goodnight has said on numerous occasions to WRAL TechWire over the past several years that he enjoys his work – especially writing code.

SAS employees were told of the promotion before the public announcement was made.

John Sall co-founded SAS with Goodnight and runs the separate SAS division known as JMP “which doesn’t fall under the COO/CTO,” a company spokesperson says.New tasks begin Jan. 1

Schabenberger has worked at SAS since 2002, beginning in the R&D division. He assumes his dual role on January 1.

Last year, he was named CTO to replace Armistead Sapp who left to launch a startup. Schabenberger holds several patents in software design and algorithms.

SAS, which launched in 1976, is a global leader in analytics software and invests heavily in R&D. The company has been profitable from its beginning. It reported more than $3 billion in revenue in 2016 and has been listed as the world’s largest privately held software company by Forbes.

“I’m excited about this opportunity to work with Dr. Goodnight on key functions that will support our continued growth,” Schabenberger said in the announcement. “The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning are just some examples of emerging technologies that depend on and apply analytics. We see incredible opportunity for SAS in these areas and beyond as we strive to improve lives through analytics in a connected world.

As COO, Schabenger will now oversee sales, marketing and customer support services as well as be responsible for “executing the strategic direction and business priorities” of the company, SAS said.

Bio: Oliver Schabenger

Oliver Schabenberger, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at SAS, shaping the vision for R&D employees worldwide––and providing the resources needed to produce the highest quality software in areas such as business intelligence, advanced analytics, data management and customer intelligence, as well as industry-specific solutions and mobile applications. Previously, Oliver led the Analytic Server R&D Division, with responsibilities for SAS’ multi-threaded and distributed analytic server architecture, event stream processing, cognitive analytics, deep learning, and artificial intelligence. He has contributed thousands of lines of code to cutting-edge projects at SAS, including, SAS Cloud Analytic Services, the engine behind SAS Viya, the next-generation SAS architecture for the open, unified, simple, and powerful cloud.

Source: SAS