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Oracle this week announced that it has promoted Clay Magouyrk, president of Oracle’s cloud infrastructure business, and Mike Sicilia, president of Oracle Industries, to top roles as co-chief executive officers.
With Monday's announcement, the company said current CEO Safra Catz, who has been in that role for 11 years, will become executive vice chair of Oracle's board of directors.
WHY IT MATTERS
Magouyrk and Sicilia have been tapped to lead Oracle into a new era of artificial intelligence, "where technological innovation leads to extraordinary business opportunity and hyper-growth," the pair said in a joint statement.
"Our combined strengths in AI, cloud infrastructure, horizontal applications and industry applications will enable Oracle to deliver the latest AI capabilities to our customers," they said.
Oracle's AI database and cloud infrastructure rapidly evolved, and the technology business has "never been stronger," according to Catz, who has served as Oracle's CEO since 2014.
"Our breathtaking growth rate points to an even more prosperous future," she said in the statement. "At this time of strength is the right moment to pass the CEO role to the next generation of capable executives."
"A few years ago, [Magouyrk and Sicilia] committed Oracle's infrastructure and applications businesses to AI – it's paying off," added Larry Ellison Oracle's board chairman and chief technology officer.
Notably, Oracle's shares jumped 36% as AI's growing influence on the tech market was reported by Reuters. The company's growth followed that of other tech companies, including Palantir, over the past year.
According to Fortune, Magouyrk and Sicilia are incentivized to stay with Oracle until at least 2029, when they will be 80% vested in stock options worth an estimated $350 million. Remaining incentives will vest over three years, and when revenue performance metrics are met and Oracle’s stock price rises.
As vice chair, Catz will help "to guide Oracle's direction, growth and success," Ellison said.
The company also announced Mark Hura, the current Oracle North America Sales executive vice president, as president of the company's global field operations and Doug Kehring, current operations EVP, as principal financial officer.
THE LARGER TREND
This past month, Oracle announced the launch of its new an AI-powered ambulatory electronic health system, and said an Oracle Health EHR for acute providers is planned for next year.
The company sees big things for AI healthcare, with big potential to improve care quality and value by improving reimbursement, enabling better clinical data analytics and enhancing EHRs with "contextual and conversational" features.
As announced earlier this month at the annual Oracle Health and Life Sciences summit, the cloud services company is making generative AI available directly within Oracle Health's patient portal, said Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences, "putting the power of AI in their hands."
ON THE RECORD
Ellison noted that Catz led Oracle over the past decade-plus, "as we became a hyperscale cloud powerhouse."
“Today, Oracle is recognized as the cloud of choice for both AI training and inferencing. I’m very proud of that,” said Catz in a statement. “At this time of strength is the right moment to pass the CEO role to the next generation of capable executives. Congratulations Clay and Mike.”
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
