Oracle has announced a significant leadership transition, promoting Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia to the joint role of chief executive officer, while Safra Catz steps into the position of executive vice chair of the board.
The move marks the end of Catz’s eleven-year tenure at the helm, during which she steered the company through a period of rapid growth and technological transformation.
Magouyrk, previously president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, joined the company in 2014 from Amazon Web Services. He played a pivotal role in developing Oracle’s Gen2 cloud platform, which has become central to the firm’s artificial intelligence and cloud strategy. Sicilia, formerly president of Oracle Industries, brings expertise in vertical applications and applied AI, having joined Oracle through the acquisition of Primavera Systems. His teams have been credited with pioneering intent-based application generation and integrating advanced AI agents into Oracle’s industry suites, spanning healthcare, banking, communications, utilities, hospitality, and retail.
Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman and chief technology officer, praised the new appointments, stating, “A few years ago, Clay and Mike committed Oracle’s Infrastructure and Applications businesses to AI—it’s paying off. They are both proven leaders, and I am looking forward to spending the coming years working side-by-side with them. Oracle’s future is bright.”
Catz reflected on her time as chief executive officer, saying, “At this time of strength is the right moment to pass the CEO role to the next generation of capable executives.”
The leadership change comes as Oracle’s cloud business continues to surge, with the company reaffirming its financial guidance and projecting substantial growth in cloud infrastructure revenue. Oracle’s stock has climbed sharply over the past year, buoyed by demand for AI-powered solutions and major contracts in data centre and cloud services.
Magouyrk and Sicilia expressed their enthusiasm for the future, stating, “We are excited to lead Oracle into the AI era, where technological innovation leads to extraordinary business opportunity and hyper-growth. Our combined strengths in AI, cloud infrastructure, horizontal applications and industry applications, will enable Oracle to deliver the latest AI capabilities to our customers.”
The company also announced promotions for Mark Hura, who will become president of global field operations, and Doug Kehring, who will assume the role of principal financial officer.
Recent months have seen Oracle at the centre of major industry developments, including its involvement in the ongoing negotiations around the social media platform TikTok. Oracle is set to play a key role in maintaining TikTok’s data and privacy in the United States, as part of an investor consortium that includes private equity firm Silver Lake. Under the proposed arrangement, Oracle will continue to provide cloud infrastructure for TikTok, with all American user data stored on Oracle-operated servers. This follows earlier regulatory pressure for ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to divest its US operations.
Oracle’s cloud business has benefited from the AI boom, with access to advanced Nvidia graphics processing units helping the company attract large-scale contracts. The company’s remaining performance obligations – a measure of contracted revenue yet to be recognised – have soared to $455 billion, up 359 per cent from a year earlier. Oracle has reaffirmed its bullish financial outlook, projecting continued growth as demand for AI and cloud services accelerates.
