Safra Catz, Co-President and CFO, Oracle
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Oracle Co-President and CFO Safra Catz, a former investment banker, is thought to be the wheeler and dealer behind Oracle's mega-merger binge—and possible heir to CEO Larry Ellison's throne.
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America's highest-paid female executive, with a $26.1 million pay package in 2005, told Forbes earlier this year, though, that she had no such ambitions.
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"I don't know who would take over if something happened to Larry," Catz said. "I don't want the job."
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Like her boss, Catz is private and guarded, and may just be posturing. Ellison, after all, does not have a good track record with heirs apparent. Then again, speculation about Ellison's successor has been a longtime media obsession and the 49-year-old Catz, at the moment, may just happen to be in the thick of things.
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Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle's eye-popping first-quarter report, showing 30 percent revenue growth to $3.59 billion for the period ended Aug. 31, snapped a four-year string of disappointments and gave Ellison an opportunity to crow about his industry-shaking acquisitions, which since PeopleSoft have included Retek, Iflex and Siebel Systems.
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While some analysts were fretting that it was hard to tell just what Oracle's numbers meant amid all the acquisitions, Catz was forecasting more good news. If Oracle's numbers keep heading in the right direction, Catz will have an increasingly difficult time deflecting speculation about just who will succeed Ellison.