Report: Oracle Cloud Sales Leader Dave Donatelli Preparing Exit
The executive vice president was recruited by former CEO Mark Hurd and seen as a top prospect to replace Hurd after his death last year. One partner first heard of Donatelli's impending departure soon after Oracle announced Safra Catz would consolidate the chief executive position
Dave Donatelli, one of the chief architects of the sales and marketing strategy for Oracle's cloud business and a seasoned hardware executive, is getting ready to leave Redwood Shores, according to a report in The Information published Monday.
Donatelli was recruited to Oracle in 2015 by co-CEO Mark Hurd, who died late last year at the age of 62. Donatelli worked for Hurd years earlier when Hurd led Hewlett-Packard.
As executive vice president for the worldwide sales and marketing strategy for Oracle Cloud solutions, Donatelli had oversight of Oracle Public Cloud, PaaS, SaaS, IaaS, DaaS, Converged Infrastructure, industry solutions, systems integrators, and Java, according to his Oracle executive bio.
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A large Oracle implementation partner told CRN he first learned from Oracle staff last month that Donatelli would be leaving the company. That conversation, the partner said, came in the days after Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison revealed during a Dec. 12 earnings call that Hurd would not be replaced as co-CEO, and Safra Catz would consolidate the position previously split between the two executives.
At the time, the partner said he and his channel compatriots considered Donatelli, who spent 22 years at EMC before coming to Hewlett-Packard, a top prospect to replace Hurd as one of its two chief executives.
Donatelli, who attended some Partner Advisory Board meetings, "definitely listened to what we said," that partner said, and had a historic appreciation for the role of partners as a longtime hardware executive.
At the same time, his departure probably will not have any significant implications for Oracle's channel, that partner said.
Oracle declined to comment.