Oracle embarks on a single succession experience: a company worth $ 870 billion led by 4 leaders

The question arises not only because Oracle recently announced that two leaders are the new CEOs of the company, succeeding Safra Catz, who had been CEO or CO-PDG for 11 years. Making the succession more intriguing, Catz was raised to the board of directors with an incredible title, while the founder Larry Ellison continues as chairman of the board of directors and director of technology, but with tasks that are in no way transparent. Result: we know who are the CEOs of Oracle by title, but who they are actually can be less obvious.

The challenges of Oracle’s unique succession experience are extraordinarily raised. The actions of the company have suddenly exploded, doubling in the last four months, making Oracle at the world^th most precious company. It’s a magnificent performance, but investors might like to know, especially now – who really directs the show?

In the vanilla version of the management of a large company, it’s simple: the CEO manages the show, and the board of directors supervises the CEO and the global management of the company. He does not run in daily decisions. But in some companies, 11% of fortune 500, the board of directors is headed by an “executive president” who is not the CEO but who participates in the management of the company while directing the board of directors. As a rule, the executive president is the previous CEO, and the new CEO generally falls under this person. “When you are executive president, the male stops with you,” explains Charles Elson, an expert in corporate governance who has sat on several advice. “It is a change of title with little sense. You always perform the show, point final.” Think about it this way: “Executive President” = “Real CEO”.

At Oracle, the Board of Directors did the long-standing CEO Ellison Executive Chair in 2014, and Catz and Mark Hurd have become CO-PDG. But then things become trouble. Ellison quickly ceased to be called President of the Management and adopted his current title, although the company never seems to have announced a change in its role. (Oracle did not respond to the requests.) Catz and Hurd continued while the CEOs until Hurd took a leave, then died in 2019, after which Catz continued alone.

With this as a background, look at the new title of Catz: executive vice-president of the board of directors of Oracle. It’s a bit strange because in corporate governance, “there is no title as vice-president of the council,” explains Elson. Companies must have boards and advice must have chairs, but that’s it. In addition, it is difficult to see how a board of directors could include Catz as an executive vice-president, even as an honorary title, unless it includes Ellison as an executive president, in reality if not in title; Otherwise, the vice-president would hold more power than the president.

All this suggests that the new CEOs of Oracle, Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia, may not be entirely CEO in the usual sense. With two of them, the business bucks never stop completely with it. In addition, with at least one member of the board of directors who is also a declared executive, they are upgraded.

So how many CEOs in Oracle? Officially two, probably four. And who knows, maybe everything will work dramatically. What we know with certainty is that no matter how this configuration takes place, CEOs, administrators and ambitious executives will study it for years.

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