Oracle CEO Mark Hurd will be taking a leave of absence from the company because of certain health issues. He is one of the two CEOs of the organization.
Stocks drop post-announcement
Oracle has two CEOs- Mark Hurd and Safra Catz. Hurd joined Oracle from Hewlett-Packard in 2010. His responsibilities will now be taken up by Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison. The company didn’t mention what kind of health issues Hurd was going through, and when he will be available to join the company again. The news of his absence led to a slump in Oracle stock in extended trading.
The 62-year-old Hurd announced his time off from a job in a message sent to Oracle employees this Wednesday. He wrote, “Though we all worked hard together to close the first quarter, I’ve decided that I need to spend time focused on my health.” He also noted that his request has been approved by the board.
Oracle also decided to prepone its quarterly financials by a day. Catz held a conference call for sharing details of their quarterly results and noted that it made sense to share all news related to the company at once.
Hurd’s corporate past
Hurd was working for the NCR Corp. for 25 years and went on to become its CEO. He later joined Hewlett-Packard as CEO and remained there for five years. However, he had to resign from the company followed sexual harassment allegations from an independent consultant at the company. At the time, Ellison wrote a scathing letter for the HP board to the New York Times and said that they had made the “worst personnel decision” after Apple’s firing of Steve Jobs. He sharply objected the decision and said that Apple was nearly destroyed because of Jobs’ ouster and the man had to come back and save.
In 2010, Hurd joined Oracle as president and went on to become its CEO in 2014. He looks after consulting, marketing, sales, support and industry-facing business units of the company. Ellison wished the ailing CEO a speedy recovery and said that the company has a capable CEO in Catz, who is supported by the company’s team of executives.
Meanwhile, the company is preparing for its annual user conference, OpenWorld, to be held in San Francisco next week. Hurd stated in a press release for the event that the company has some “exciting plans” to reveal.
