Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: Lijun Sun, SAP

Lijun Sun

Global VP, CMO for APAC and Greater China
SAP
China
New member 

Lijun Sun has more than 20 years’ experience in the IT and banking industry across SAP, IBM, PWC and China Construction Bank. These are challenging industries to market, but Sun has a knack for innovative marketing. One of Sun’s most successful initiatives at SAP has been the ‘Ding Ge Awards’ for digital transformation pioneers, in conjunction with Harvard Business Review and Tsinghua University. The industry award has run for the past three years and has been credited with helping SAP enhance its engagement with C-level executives and branding itself as a digital transformation leader.

In her capacity as one of the core leaders of SAP’s China accelerator plan, Sun led the rebranding of SAP Greater China in 2019, becoming the only region with a local logo, tagline, and narrative. Her commitment to elevating SAP Greater China has been recognised by a slew of creative and cultural awards, including Effies and ROI awards, and its recognition as one of ‘China’s Most Respected Companies’ by Economic Observer every year from 2017-2021. SAP also ranked third in LinkedIn’s ‘25 best workplaces to grow your career in China’ for 2021. Sun has also received accolades of her own, including the Ram Charan Award for Management Practice from the Harvard Business Review in 2017, and ‘Meritorious Figures’ by the China Advertisers Ceremony Organizing Committee in 2018.

Elsewhere in Sun’s list of accomplishments SAP has become China’s first company to offer a digital transformation course in top business schools. Sun attaches great importance to cultivating talent in the industry. From 2019 to 2020 she designed and ran the Digital Transformation MBA course and Intelligent Finance MBA course for SAP at Tsinghua University. She is a regular guest speaker and career counsellor at Tsinghua University.

Sun is an active member of the industry, acting as a juror for the Greater China and APAC Effie Awards, and an executive sponsor of SAP’s Pride employee group. She is trilingual and lives in Beijing with her son, husband and poodle.