Oracle co-CEO Hurd passes away

Mark Hurd, co-CEO of Oracle, has died at age 62.

Hurd, who had been serving as co-chief executive of Oracle since September 2010, took a leave of absence from the company in September 2019. At the time, he sent an internal message saying he needed to focus on his health.

While at Oracle, Hurd’s accomplishments included shifting the company’s long-term strategy toward the cloud, including on-premise, cloud, and hybrid cloud deployment solutions. Larry Ellison, chairman and founder of Oracle, confirmed Hurd’s death in a message to employees on Hurd’s personal website.

“Mark was my close and irreplaceable friend, and trusted colleague,” Ellison said in the message. “Oracle has lost a brilliant and beloved leader who personally touched the lives of so many of us during his decade at Oracle. All of us will miss Mark’s keen mind and rare ability to analyze, simplify and solve problems quickly.” (Read the full post here.) 

Hurd came to Oracle after resigning as CEO of Hewlett-Packard in the wake of sexual harassment allegations involving actress Jodie Fisher, who was working as a marketing contractor for the company. An outside investigation ultimately concluded Hurd did not violate HP sexual harassment policies, but did violate some company business conduct standards.