Oracle has announced the appointment of Rona Fairhead, Baroness Fairhead to the Oracle Board of Directors. She will commence her appointment on July 31, 2019 and it will increases the size of the Board to 15 directors. Larry Ellison, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Technology Officer briefly welcomed her in a statement saying: “I am very pleased to welcome Mrs Fairhead to the Board”. Bruce Chizen, Chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee, added: “Mrs. Fairhead is an accomplished leader with extensive international experience in finance, risk management, government affairs and global operations. The Board will benefit from her unique perspective.”
Baroness Fairhead served as Minister of State at the Department for International Trade from 2017 to 2019. Fairhead resigned a Minister of State in May 2019. She brings a wealth of experience to the Oracle board and has had an extensive career in business. Baroness Fairhead worked at Bain & Company and Morgan Stanley early in her career before taking up senior positions at ICI. She was also Chief Financial Officer at Pearson PLC between 2002 and 2006. She will serve a one year term and will next stand for re-election at the stockholder AGM in November 2019.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is an interesting move by Oracle as it looks to strengthen its board. She will be the fourth female member of the board after Safra Catz, Naomi Seligman and Renée J James. She is also the only European. The appointment brings better gender balance to the Oracle board. However. in comparison to some other companies it still has some way to go. With Brexit looming it is in someways surprising that Oracle does not have at least one other European on its board.
