Mark Hurd, Oracle Co-CEO Dies at Age 62

Larry Ellison, Chairman of Oracle Corporation confirmed and immediately announced the passing of Mark Hurd, which occurred in the morning of Friday, 18 October.

Until his death at 62, Mark served as Oracle co-CEO. He joined the company as a co-president in 2010, and four years later, was appointed CEO of Oracle Corporation, and also became a member of the company’s board of directors.

“It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that I tell everyone here at Oracle that Mark Hurd passed away early this morning. Mark was my close and irreplaceable friend, and trusted colleague,” Ellison wrote on Mark’s dedicated site.

“Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle. All of us will miss Mark’s keen mind and rare ability to analyze, simplify and solve problems quickly.”

For the moment, it is expected that co-CEO Safra Catz and Oracle founder Ellison would assume Mark’s responsibilities in the company.

Referred as silicon’s ultimate salesman by Bloomberg, it was reported that Mark had taken a leave of absence in September for an unspecified illness and that Ellison and Catz would assume his responsibilities.

However, Ellison has said that Catz will stay in place and that he would like to keep the two-CEO structure. He further mentioned Don Johnson, head of Oracle’s cloud infrastructure division, and Steve Miranda, head of Oracle’s applications unit, as possible partners to Catz in the future.

Just before joining Oracle, Mark was the CEO and president at Hewlett-Packard (HP) for five years. Coming to Oracle, Mark became a supporter of hyperscale data centers from 2015 despite dismissing the concept in 2012.

His tenure witnessed Oracle’s heavy investment in cloud computing, both through R&D and acquisitions such as NetSuite, Eloqua, and Taleo, a cloud talent management software provider.