PLACE OF BIRTH: HOLON, ISRAEL
TITLE: CO-CEO, ORACLE
IMPACT: BORN IN ISRAEL, SAFRA CATZ MOVED TO THE U.S. AS A CHILD. She started her career in finance before joining Oracle in 1999 as a senior vice president who reported directly to founder Larry Ellison. In 2001 she was appointed to Oracle’s board, and she became Ellison’s right hand during major acquisitions, such as Oracle’s hostile takeover of PeopleSoft and its $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems. She was promoted from president and CFO to co-CEO alongside Mark Hurd in 2014, and in 2015, her $57 million pay package made her the highest-paid female executive in the U.S. Notoriously publicity shy, Catz’s influence at Oracle—and thus, on tech and business generally—has been unmistakable. “There’s no difference between Safra and Larry,” former Oracle exec Mark Barrenechea told the Los Angeles Times in 2006. “One’s just at the microphone, and the other is behind the curtain.”
TITLE: CO-CEO, ORACLE
IMPACT: BORN IN ISRAEL, SAFRA CATZ MOVED TO THE U.S. AS A CHILD. She started her career in finance before joining Oracle in 1999 as a senior vice president who reported directly to founder Larry Ellison. In 2001 she was appointed to Oracle’s board, and she became Ellison’s right hand during major acquisitions, such as Oracle’s hostile takeover of PeopleSoft and its $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems. She was promoted from president and CFO to co-CEO alongside Mark Hurd in 2014, and in 2015, her $57 million pay package made her the highest-paid female executive in the U.S. Notoriously publicity shy, Catz’s influence at Oracle—and thus, on tech and business generally—has been unmistakable. “There’s no difference between Safra and Larry,” former Oracle exec Mark Barrenechea told the Los Angeles Times in 2006. “One’s just at the microphone, and the other is behind the curtain.”
Photo by Tony Avelar/Getty Images
