After serving Oracle for 7 years as co-President with Safra Catz, 52-year old Charles Phillips resigned from the company in September 2010 and assumed the helm as President and CEO of privately held Infor Global Solutions based in Alpharetta in Georgia. He replaced Jim Schaper who promptly became the company chairman and operating partner of Golden Gate Capital, Infor’s main shareholder group and equity backer. Mark Hurd, former President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, takes over his post at Oracle.
Charles Phillips comes to Infor Global at a most auspicious time when his experience will come in handy to meet the same challenges as the company goes into the 2nd growth phase of its ambitious plans to compete head with the big boys. The $2 billion IT software development company markets what is considered the 3rd largest ERP package in the world after SAP and Oracle. It now enjoys more than 70,000 customers in 125 countries around the world, mostly small and medium scale companies which Infor targets as its main markets.
Four months after Charles assumed his post, Infor released its 2nd generation application products making use of Microsoft technologies with a common user interface, similar to what Oracle did under him for its disparate apps in the Oracle ERP package. Infor is also looking forward to its $1.8 billion purchase of another ERP vendor Lawson Software to achieve vertical integration into the healthcare businesses. This is nothing new to Charles who was in charge of Oracle’s strategic business acquisition of about 60 IT companies worth $30 billion. And at a time when Infor is about to embark on its IPO, Infor can expect a high stock market confidence with Charles at the helm.
Charles Phillips earned his BS in Computer Science from the US Air Force Academy, after which he got his MBA from Hampton University and a Juris Doctor from the New York Law School. He then served briefly as a Captain in the US Marine Corp. He started his Wall Street career at Morgan Stanley as a Managing Director overseeing the IT industry. In 2003, he joined Oracle as its President along with Safra Catz. Apart from sitting in the boards of Morgan Stanley and Viacom, Inc., Charles also sits on the boards of The American Museum of Natural History, New York Law School, and Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
