Can Oracle's New Co-CEOs Sustain Its AI Infrastructure Boom?

“Today, Oracle is recognised as the cloud of choice for both AI training and inferencing,” says Safra Catz, who after 11 years as Oracle’s chief executive will step aside for co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia. “At this time of strength is the right moment to pass the CEO role to the next generation of capable executives.”

The leadership change comes as Oracle approaches a trillion-dollar market valuation, with shares gaining 85% in the past year. The enterprise software giant’s remaining performance obligations have soared to $455 billion, up 359% from a year earlier, as companies rush to adopt AI technologies. Oracle announced the appointments on 22 September 2025, with Safra Catz becoming Executive Vice Chair of the Board of Directors.

New Oracle co-CEOs split infrastructure and applications leadership

Clay Magouyrk, 39, takes charge from his role as President of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, whilst Mike Sicilia, 54, moves up from President of Oracle Industries. Clay will oversee infrastructure whilst Mike manages applications for enterprise AI workloads.

Clay joined Oracle in 2014 from Amazon Web Services as a founding engineer of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. His background includes direct experience with hyperscale cloud operations that Oracle needed as it built competing infrastructure against Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Mike entered Oracle through the acquisition of Primavera Systems and has overseen Oracle's vertical applications portfolio across healthcare, banking, communications, utilities, hospitality and retail sectors. His teams rebuilt Oracle Health following the company's $28.3 billion acquisition of Cerner in 2022.

Larry Ellison, Oracle's Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, says Clay’s “years of experience leading Oracle’s large, fast-growing Cloud Infrastructure business has demonstrated his readiness for a CEO role,” noting that he “has spent the last several years modernising Oracle's Industry applications businesses – including Oracle Health – by completely rebuilding those applications using the latest AI technologies.”

Oracle returns to co-CEO structure

The appointment echoes Oracle’s previous leadership transition in 2014, when Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO after 37 years to become Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. He had led Oracle from its founding in 1977, transforming a startup into the world's second-largest software company through database technology innovation and strategic acquisitions.

Safra Catz was named co-CEO in 2014 alongside Mark Hurd, having joined Oracle in 1999 after 13 years of investment banking at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, becoming the company's finance chief in 2005. The co-CEO structure proved effective during Oracle’s transformation from database licensing to cloud computing services.

Mark Hurd’s death in 2019 ended the partnership, leaving Safra as sole CEO during Oracle’s emergence as a cloud infrastructure provider. Under her leadership, Oracle’s shares surged more than 586% as the company secured contracts with OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, AMD, TikTok and Uber.

AI boom drives Oracle’s cloud growth

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure under Clay Magouyrk’s leadership now handles what the company describes as gigawatt-scale AI training operations. The infrastructure division has driven much of Oracle’s recent growth, particularly through the Stargate project, a US$500bn AI infrastructure initiative announced at the White House in January. Oracle and OpenAI agreed in July to develop 4.5 gigawatts of additional Stargate data centre capacity in the United States, bringing total planned capacity to over five gigawatts capable of running two million AI chips.

Mike Sicilia’s industry applications have integrated sophisticated AI agents designed to replace traditional coding methods. These applications target regulated industries where compliance requirements often influence technology choices, potentially giving Oracle advantages over competitors with more generalised offerings.

Oracle has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom through its cloud infrastructure business and access to Nvidia's graphics processing units, with the company’s platform handling AI training and inference workloads.

Executive changes prepare Oracle for global expansion

Safra Catz will become Executive Vice Chair of the Board of Directors, maintaining involvement whilst transferring operational control. Larry Ellison says he and Safra “will be able to continue our 26-year partnership – helping to guide Oracle’s direction, growth and success.”

Oracle also promoted Mark Hura from Executive Vice President of Oracle North America Sales to President, Global Field Operations and Doug Kehring from Executive Vice President of Operations to Principal Financial Officer. 

The appointments occur as enterprise customers increasingly adopt AI technologies across business operations. Oracle's dual leadership structure divides infrastructure and application development as the company competes for high-value AI workloads.

Clay and Mike state in a joint statement: “We are excited to lead Oracle into the AI era, where technological innovation leads to extraordinary business opportunity and hyper-growth. Our combined strengths in AI, cloud infrastructure, horizontal applications and industry applications, will enable Oracle to deliver the latest AI capabilities to our customers.”