Cloud service provider Oracle suddenly announced a change of leadership, and the president of cloud infrastructure and industry business will serve as co-CEOs. On September 22, local time, Oracle announced that it would promote its cloud infrastructure president Clay Magouyrk and industry president Mike Sicilia to co-CEOs. Safra Catz, who has served as CEO for 11 consecutive years, was appointed vice chairman of the company's board of directors. On the 22nd, Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) fell more than 1% in pre-market trading and rose 2% after the opening.
In a statement, Oracle founder and chief technology officer Larry Ellison said: "A few years ago, Clay and Mike invested Oracle's infrastructure and application business in the field of AI, and now it has paid off." Katz said: "At this period of strong company strength, it is appropriate to hand over the CEO position to the next generation of capable executives."
In 2014, Ellison stepped down as CEO and Katz was named co-CEO of the company along with Mark Hurd. After Hurd passed away in 2019, Katz continued to lead the company as sole CEO.
Public information shows that Maguirke is one of the founding members of Oracle's Cloud Engineering Development Center. Before joining Oracle, he worked at Amazon AWS. Currently, Maguilke is responsible for leading engineering, product strategy and technical operations for the cloud infrastructure business, leading the development of Oracle's second generation cloud platform (Gen2).
On the other side, Sicilia worked at project management software company Primavera Systems, which was acquired by Oracle in 2008. Currently, he is responsible for the product development, operations and market strategies of the company's vertical industries such as retail, medical, and finance, and promotes the integration and embedded functions of AI in industry applications.
Oracle also announced that two other senior executives were promoted. Mark Hura, executive vice president of sales in North America, will serve as president of global field operations, and Doug Kehring, executive vice president of operations, will serve as chief financial officer.
By providing cloud infrastructure business, Oracle has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, competing for customers with major cloud providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. At the same time, Oracle has close ties with the US government and is involved in the "Stargate" project.
Previously, Oracle's first fiscal quarter results for fiscal year 2026 as of August 31 showed that the company's revenue during the reporting period was US$14.93 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12%; non-GAAP net profit was US$4.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 8%; adjusted earnings per share was US$1.47.
While revenue fell short of expectations, a positive outlook for its cloud business drove the company's stock price to a record high. Oracle said that the company's remaining performance obligations (RPO, contracts that customers have signed but have not yet been included in revenue) have reached US$455 billion in this fiscal quarter, an increase of more than four times year-on-year. This number was US$138 billion at the end of the previous fiscal quarter.
Katz also revealed that the company signed four contracts worth "billions of dollars" with three major customers in the last financial quarter, and it is expected that RPO is expected to exceed $500 billion in the next few months. Ellison also emphasized that AI (artificial intelligence) is fundamentally changing Oracle, and the AI reasoning market "will be much larger" than the AI training market.