Safra Catz, co-president and chief financial officer of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld 2011 conference in San Francisco on Oct. 5, 2011.
Safra A. Catz has served as president of database giant Oracle Corporation since January 2004. In April 2011 she became the company’s chief financial officer — for the second time in her career. (She also served as Oracle CFO in the mid-2000s). A native of Holon, Israel, Catz moved to Brookline, Mass. when she was six years old. Catz earned a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 2011, Catz was named number 11 on Fortune‘s list of the 50 most powerful women in business.
As head of the Oracle’s mergers and acquisitions team, she was credited by Fortune with completing “80-plus deals valued at more than $43 billion in the [prior] six years.” Perhaps not surprisingly, this top deal-maker earned a whopping $42 million in total 2010 compensation. Prior to joining Oracle, Catz worked at investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which later merged with Credit Suisse First Boston. At DLJ, which she joined in 1986, Catz was a managing director from February 1997 to March 1999 and a senior vice president from January 1994 to February 1997. Catz has two children with her husband, writer Gal Tirosh, whom she once credited with helping to enable her career by being a stay-at-home Dad.