Oracle Hires Former HP CEO Mark Hurd as President, Named to Board of Directors
In an announcement Monday night, Oracle said that Mark Hurd has joined the company as President and has been named to Oracle’s Board of Directors. Mr. Hurd will report to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
Hurd resigned from HP in August, following an investigation surrounding a claim of sexual harassment against him and HP by Jodie Fisher, a former contractor to HP. The investigation determined there was no violation of HP’s sexual harassment policy but showed that Hurd did violate HP’s code of conduct by reportedly modifying expense reports to conceal a personal relationship with Ms. Fisher.
Larry Ellison doesn’t seem to care. “Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,” said Ellison. “There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark. Oracle’s future is engineering complete and integrated hardware and software systems for the enterprise. Mark pioneered the integration of hardware with software when Teradata was a part of NCR.”
In an email sent to the New York Times in early August, Larry Ellison trashed HP’s board on its handling of the issue. “The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,” wrote Ellison. “That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.”
Oracle simultaneously announced that Charles Phillips resigned from his position as President and member of the board. Hurd will join Oracle as co-president along with Safra Catz who has been with Oracle since 2004 and on Oracle’s Board of Directors since 2001.
Mark Hurd had an excellent track record with HP (5 years) and NCR (25 years) and is a solid addition to Oracle’s management team and a great match for both sides. We’ll see what ORCL shareholders think on Tuesday.