Joe Cowan, president and CEO of Epicor Software Corp., will retire at the end of October 2017. The board of directors has appointed Stephen Murphy, former president of OpenText, to the role of CEO.

“On behalf of the board of directors, I would like to thank Joe for his four years of distinguished service to Epicor and support in this transition,” said Herald Chen, chairman of the Epicor board of directors. “As we look toward the next phase of growth for the company, we are pleased to have Stephen join the Epicor team. He brings a strong customer-centric orientation, a growth mindset, and a proven track record of leadership.”

Before joining Epicor, Murphy served as president of OpenText, a $2B global leader in enterprise information management with 12,000 employees worldwide. His career spans more than 20 years in the technology sector with positions at Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Manugistics, Accenture and Procter & Gamble. Murphy holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Davis.