Oracle’s president of product development, Thomas Kurian, announced earlier this month that he would be taking an extended leave from the company and did not detail when he would be returning. At the time of the announcement, a representative for Oracle declined to say who would be filling Kurian’s place until his return.
Kurian is widely considered to be Oracle’s top technical leader after founder and CEO Larry Ellison and has held the position of president since 2015. Though the company has installed co-Chief Executives Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, Kurian reported directly to Ellison prior to announcing his leave.
Kurian oversaw a portfolio that includes Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and various CRM, ERP and supply chain management divisions. The organization represents about a quarter of Oracle’s employee base. Outside of his work at Oracle, he also serves as an advisory member on the boards of several venture funds and SaaS companies.
Oracle has recently shaken investors with its perceived underperformance in cloud computing as it competes with stiff competition from Amazon’s AWS. The company’s stock has fallen 5% in the past year despite a market surge, particularly in tech sector stocks. Kurian received $35.7 million in compensation for the fiscal year ending in May of 2017.
Kurian joined Oracle in 1996 and worked his way up from product management positions to be a leader at the company. As a Vice President of the company’s e-Business division, Kurian helped prioritize e-Business initiatives within the company before moving over to lead the Fusion Middleware division. Kurian led this division to be the fastest-growing in the company and a leader in the industry.
Subsequently, as the Senior Vice President of Oracle’s Server Technologies Division, Kurian was part of the leadership team that brought the Oracle 9i application server to market.
Thomas Kurian holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Princeton and was an Arjay Miller Scholar at Stanford Business School, where he earned his MBA. Prior to taking a position at Oracle, Kurian worked as a consultant at McKinsey in their software, telecommunications and financial services divisions.
