Mark Vincent Hurd (January 1, 1957 – October 18, 2019) was an American businessman who was CEO of Oracle Corporation. Prior to that, he was CEO of NCR Corporation until 2005, then served as chairman, chief executive officer and president of Hewlett-Packard until 2010. He also served on the board of directors of Globality and a member of the Technology CEO Council and board of directors of News Corporation until 2010.
Early life and education
Hurd was born in New York City, the son of Teresa A. (Fanoni), a debutante and Ralph Steiner Hurd, a financier. He graduated from The Browning School, in NYC in 1974. In 1979, Hurd graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He received a tennis scholarship to attend Baylor University and was a member of Phi Delta Theta.
Career
NCR (1980–2005)
Hurd spent 25 years at NCR Corporation, culminating in a two-year tenure as chief executive officer and president. He was named president of NCR in 2001 and was given additional responsibilities as chief operating officer (COO) in 2002. He began working for NCR as a junior salesman in San Antonio in 1980 after Rodney Gray hired him and subsequently held a variety of positions in general management, operations, and sales and marketing. He also was head of the company's Teradata data-warehousing division for three years.
During his leadership, the company became the leader of the sale of laptop computers in 2006, and the leader in the sale of desktop computers in 2007. In 2008, it increased its market share in inkjet printers and laser printers to 46% and 50.5%, respectively. In March 2009, Hurd forecast that HP's sales could drop as much as 5% that year, in the midst of the recession, but that its profit would increase by nearly 6%. The New York Times said Hurd had "pulled off one of the great rescue missions in American corporate history, refocusing the strife-ridden company and leading it to five years of revenue gains and a stock that soared 130 percent".
Hurd was said to have run HP "with a founder's authority. He was the de facto CEO, CFO, COO and head salesman". Hurd had a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting. He laid off 15,200 workers — 10% of the workforce — shortly after becoming CEO. Other cost-cutting included reducing the IT department from 19,000 to 8,000, reducing the number of software applications that HP used from 6,000 to 1,500, and consolidating HP's 85 data centers to 6. In 2008, The San Francisco Chronicle named Hurd as CEO of the year. In 2009, Hurd was listed as one of Forbes' top gun CEOs.
In 2008, Hurd's total compensation was $39,952,237, including a base salary of $1,450,000, stock award of $7,907,660, cash bonus of $23,931,882, and $662,695 in perquisites and other compensation. It was the largest bonus of any CEO in 2008. In 2009, Hurd made a total of $24,201,448, including a base salary of $1,268,750, stock award of $6,648,092, cash bonus of $15,809,414 and $475,192 in benefits and other compensation.
On August 6, 2010, Hurd resigned from all of his positions at HP, with the Board of Directors appointing CFO Cathie Lesjak as interim CEO. Hurd's decision was made after an investigation into whether Hurd violated HP's code of business conduct following claims made by former contractor Jodie Fisher. The investigation concluded that the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but in the course of investigating the allegations, they found that Hurd had submitted inaccurate expense reports. Outside observers suggested the company's board of directors had made a poor decision and may have had mixed motives in requiring his resignation in order to mitigate negative publicity. Fisher herself expressed regrets at the outcome.
Oracle Corporation (2010–2019)
thumb|left|Hurd talking with [[Maria Bartiromo in 2013]]
On September 6, 2010, Hurd was named president of Oracle Corporation alongside Safra A. Catz, succeeding former president Charles Phillips. Hurd was also appointed a member of the Oracle Corporation board of directors. Hurd and Catz were appointed by then-CEO Larry Ellison. HP then sued Hurd, claiming he would violate agreements to protect HP's secrets by assuming that high-level role at Oracle; the lawsuit was settled two weeks later, with Hurd giving up about half the compensation owed him by HP.
Hurd revamped the company's sales department in 2013, a process that had initially started two years prior. Hurd changed the compensation for Oracle's salespeople in order to sell more hardware, hired additional salespeople, and reduced the number of accounts covered by each salesman. In April 2013, he reported that the number of salespeople had increased by 4,000. His plans to revamp initially faced flak from veteran salespeople, some of whom left Oracle to work for competitors. Hurd reported in 2015 that Oracle recruits 1,300 students each year.
On September 18, 2014, Ellison announced he was stepping down as CEO of Oracle, with Hurd and Catz becoming co-CEOs. Hurd was given control of sales, service, and marketing departments, while Catz was to oversee operations, legal, and finance departments.
Under Hurd, Oracle accelerated its focus on cloud technology and modernized its legacy software to compete with smaller cloud-based firms. In 2016, Hurd said that Oracle's cloud business had grown 82% between 2015 and 2016 as well as invested $5.1 billion into research and development in improving its cloud services.
Oracle acquired several cloud-based companies in 2016 under Hurd, including SaaS enterprise resource planning company NetSuite, Textura cloud services for the engineering and construction vertical, cloud-based warehouse management application company LogFire, and Opower, a provider of cloud services to the utilities industry.
Personal life
Mark Hurd married Elizabeth A. Butler on August 23, 1980; they divorced on October 14, 1987. Hurd and his second wife, Paula Kalupa, an executive with NCR, married in 1990. They had two daughters, Kathryn and Kelly.
In September 2019, Hurd announced his intention to go on leave for unspecified health reasons. He also said co-CEO Safra Catz and Oracle founder CTO Larry Ellison would be managing the organization while he was away. Hurd died on October 18, 2019, reportedly of cancer.
Bibliography
- The Value Factor: How Global Leaders Use Information for Growth and Competitive Advantage by Mark Hurd and Lars Nyberg, Bloomberg Press, 2004,
- Fall 2003 Baylor Business Review "Enterprise Decision-Making" by Mark Hurd,