Oracle’s Former President Charles Phillips Gets CEO Gig
Charles Phillips has rebounded from his awkward exit from Oracle, landing the CEO spot at ERP and CRM provider Infor.
Phillips, the former president of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), left in September after the company appointed former HP (NYSE: HPQ) Mark Hurd to the position. Oracle claimed Phillips’ departure had been mutually agreed to and been in the works for a while, but Oracle moved quickly to hire Hurd once he became available.
At Infor, Phillips takes over from founder and CEO Jim Schaper effective December 1. Schaper plans to continue as chairman of Infor and said he plans to remain actively involved in strategic developments at the company. Phillips said he’s bullish on Infor’s growth potential.
“Infor has quietly built the third-largest enterprise applications company in the world, with 59 percent compound annual revenue growth over the last seven years, higher margins than eight of the top 10 application companies, and a track record of leading innovation,” Phillips said in a statement. “With over 70,000 customers in 125 countries, including divisions of large corporations, Infor is poised for growth as the next generation platform ships in January.”
In a blog post Schaper noted Phillips’ management experience at Oracle and his role in spearheading several key acquisitions, including BEA Systems, Hyperion and Siebel Systems.
“I’ve spent over eight years working with my talented team here building Infor into a $2 billion software market leader. Frankly, I can’t think of anyone better to lead Infor through its next phase of growth than Charles,” said Schaper. ‘
As a further sign of his company’s expected growth, Schaper also noted that Infor plans to increase its staff by 8 percent over the next few months. The company already has over 8,000 employees.
Infor’s CEO appointment comes at a time when the company is poised to unveil the next generation of its applications portfolio in January. “Infor ION will provide common workflow, business process monitoring and management, across our applications whether on premise or in the cloud,” said Schaper.
Phillips called Infor a “diamond in the rough” in a YouTube video with Schaper embedded in the blog post. He compared Infor to a top-five scorer in the NBA playing in a small market that is often overlooked by the broader fan base. “I think I can help in that regard,” said Phillips, who called Infor “one of the best companies in the enterprise market.”
Philips said the mid-sized companies Infor targets is the most dynamic part of the market, because the large enterprises already have their ERP systems firmly established.
“They have what they need. The best you can do is get them to upgrade a module or two around the edges,” said Phillips, who also noted big enterprise sales take longer because there are so many people involved in the approval process.
“Smaller companies, there’s an owner there who wants to make a decision fast, and there’s lots of them,” he added.
You can read more about Oracle ERP here.
David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
David Needle is an experienced technology reporter, based in Silicon Valley. He covers big data, mobile, customer experience, social media, and other topics. He was previously the news editor for Enterprise Apps Today, TabTimes editor, and West Coast bureau chief of Internet.com.