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Meet Oracle's MVPs (most vertical players)

Oracle is increasingly targeting specific industries and building its management bench at the same time. At last week's Applications Unlimited event in New York, Oracle president Charles Phillips outlined how the company was building divisions focused on the retail, telecommunications, financial services and utility industries.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Oracle is increasingly targeting specific industries and building its management bench at the same time.

At last week's Applications Unlimited event in New York, Oracle president Charles Phillips outlined how the company was building divisions focused on the retail, telecommunications, financial services and utility industries. What makes these divisions unique is that they operate as independent units with their own profit and loss statements.

"These people would be CEOs elsewhere so we aligned this way to keep them CEOs inside Oracle," said Phillips.

While CEO Larry Ellison isn't known for letting other executives ride shotgun, he is building an organization that emulates General Electric to a degree. GE has one big chief and mini CEOs running various divisions.

You could call these folks, who largely arrived at Oracle via acquisition, most vertical players (MVPs). They include Duncan Angove, General Manager of Oracle's retail business; David Sardilli, senior vice president of financial services; Bhaskar Gorti, general manager of the communications unit; and Larry Hagewood, general manager of the utilities business.

These executives are worth watching for two reasons--they are critical to Oracle's growth and may even be Ellison's successor someday.

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