Ellison abandons chairman role

Larry Ellison is no longer chairman of the board at Oracle Corp. In January, the company announced long-time CFO Jeff Henley would assume that post—in effect becoming Ellison's boss, at least on paper. But there's no question that founder and CEO Ellison is still the man in charge.

"Don't believe for a minute that Ellison works for Henley," jokes Jim Shepherd, a senior analyst at AMR Research, Boston. "He's still the single largest shareholder."

Shepherd adds that separating the chairman and CEO roles "makes a lot of sense" and was long overdue. It also resolves questions on possible lines of succession, which, given Ellison's leisure activities as a pilot of his own jet fighter and as a world-class sailor, needed to be answered.

"He still runs the company, but there was concern regarding the issue of succession... if he were to fall out of the sky or off his boat," says Shepard.

Though many large high-tech firms—including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell—have a single executive for both chairman and CEO, the trend, given recent corporate governance irregularities, is toward separating the two functions.

"It's a good thing to separate the CEO and chairmanship," says Ralph Ward, publisher of Boardroom Insider newsletter. "But I think Ellison is just gaming the emphasis in business regarding corporate governance."

Though Ward says it's more typical for an executive to give up the CEO slot while retaining the chairmanship, Shepherd isn't surprised Ellison did the opposite. "He isn't going anywhere. He's not retiring. He clearly intends to continue to run the business, and it would be illogical for him to run day-to-day operations as chairman."

Oracle also named two new presidents, a position that remained vacant since Ray Lane left in June 2000. Executive VPs Safra A. Catz and Charles Phillips were named copresidents. Henley will remain CFO until a replacement is named.