Early Life and Education

Safra Ada Catz was born in December 1961 in Holon, Israel, to Jewish parents. Her father, Leonard Catz, was a nuclear physicist, and her mother, Judith, was a speech therapist and Holocaust survivor. The family experienced the intensity of the Six-Day War in June 1967, with Judith and the young daughters taking refuge in an air-raid shelter while Leonard fought in the conflict. The Catz family moved from Israel to Brookline, Massachusetts when Safra was six years old, where her father accepted a position with the physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her mother worked in the Boston public school system.

Catz graduated from Brookline High School and earned a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1983, focusing on business administration and finance. She then continued her education at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, obtaining her Juris Doctor degree in 1986. This combination of business and legal expertise would prove instrumental in her future career, equipping her with the analytical skills and strategic thinking necessary to navigate complex corporate transactions and governance issues.

Banking Career Foundation

After completing her education, Catz began her professional career on Wall Street in 1986, joining the prestigious investment banking firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. She spent over 13 years at the firm, steadily advancing through various positions. Catz served as a managing director from February 1997 to March 1999 and as senior vice president from January 1994 to February 1997, demonstrating her capacity for financial analysis and deal-making. During her time in investment banking, she developed a reputation for being sharp, analytical, and exceptionally skilled at evaluating complex business transactions. Her banking experience provided her with deep expertise in mergers and acquisitions, financial structuring, and corporate strategy skills that would define her later success at Oracle.

Rise at Oracle Corporation

Catz joined Oracle Corporation in April 1999 as senior vice president, marking the beginning of an extraordinary 26-year journey with the technology giant. Her ascent through Oracle’s ranks was remarkably swift. Within months of joining, she was named an executive vice president, demonstrating immediate impact. She became a member of the company’s board of directors in October 2001 and president in early 2004. Her promotion to CFO came temporarily from November 2005 to September 2008, and then permanently from April 2011 onward, giving her comprehensive oversight of Oracle’s financial operations.

Catz quickly became known as the financial architect behind Oracle’s aggressive acquisition strategy. She is credited for having driven Oracle’s 2005 efforts to acquire software rival PeopleSoft in a $10.3 billion takeover, navigating significant antitrust hurdles to complete the deal. Under her leadership, Oracle executed over 130 acquisitions, including the $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2009 and the $9.4 billion acquisition of NetSuite in 2016. Her approach was methodical and numbers-driven, with colleagues describing her as someone who lived in Excel spreadsheets and didn’t suffer fools gladly.

CEO Leadership and Transformation

In September 2014, Oracle announced that founder Larry Ellison would step down as CEO and that Mark Hurd and Catz had been named as joint CEOs. This co-CEO structure reflected Oracle’s complex transition from a traditional database licensing company to a cloud computing powerhouse. The partnership between Catz and Hurd proved effective in driving Oracle’s strategic pivot, with Catz focusing heavily on financial performance and operational efficiency while maintaining her characteristic low profile. In September 2019, Catz became the sole CEO after Hurd resigned due to health issues, and she continued in that role following his death later that year.

As sole CEO, Catz led Oracle through one of the most transformative periods in its history. She positioned the company to compete aggressively in cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies. Under her leadership, Oracle secured massive cloud contracts with governments and enterprises worldwide, with the company’s stock price increasing by more than 800% during her tenure as CEO. Her strategic vision helped Oracle transition from being viewed as a legacy software company to becoming recognized as a leader in AI training and cloud infrastructure.

Recognition and Compensation

Catz’s success translated into both recognition and extraordinary compensation. She has been consistently ranked among the most powerful women in business, appearing on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list for over a decade. According to an Equilar analysis published by Fortune, she was in 2011 the highest-paid woman among Fortune 1000 companies, receiving an estimated $51,695,742 in total remuneration. In 2022, Catz’s total compensation from Oracle was $138 million, making her the sixth highest paid CEO in the US that year. Her wealth grew substantially with Oracle’s stock performance, with her net worth estimated at $3.4 billion as of September 2025, making her one of the world’s richest self-made women.

Leadership Style and Philosophy

Despite her prominence, Catz has maintained an unusually low public profile throughout her career. She rarely gives interviews and shuns media attention, preferring to let Oracle’s results speak for themselves. Former colleagues describe her leadership style as quiet but powerful—sharp, inquisitive, and intensely focused on execution. Her approach emphasizes careful evaluation of investments and decisions, with a famous quote encouraging others to think independently rather than following the crowd. She reportedly hosts political fundraisers in a bipartisan manner befitting a company that derives significant revenue from the federal government, though she has been involved in Republican politics, including serving on Donald Trump’s 2016 transition team.

Board Service and External Roles

Beyond Oracle, Catz has held significant positions across the corporate and national security landscape. She served on the board of HSBC Holdings from 2008 to 2015, gaining experience with one of the world’s largest financial institutions. She was elected to the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in December 2017, serving on the board effective February 2018 until July 2024. In August 2025, Catz joined the board of Paramount Skydance, following the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media. She also serves as a trustee of In-Q-Tel, a non-profit strategic investor supporting US national security agencies, and was appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in March 2022. Additionally, she serves as a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and has chaired the Oracle Education Foundation since 2004.

Recent Transition and Legacy

Catz transitioned to the role of executive vice chair at Oracle in September 2025 and was succeeded by co-CEOs Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia. The timing of the transition came at a moment of extraordinary strength for Oracle, with the company recognized as a leader in AI infrastructure and cloud computing. In her statement announcing the change, Catz emphasized that this was the right moment to pass the CEO role to the next generation while continuing her partnership with Larry Ellison in guiding Oracle’s strategic direction. Under her leadership, Oracle achieved breathtaking growth rates and secured its position as the cloud of choice for AI training and inference workloads.

The Delaware Supreme Court vindicated Catz’s business judgment in January 2025, when it affirmed a lower court ruling in her favor regarding the NetSuite acquisition, dismissing allegations that she and Ellison had misled Oracle’s board. Her legacy at Oracle is defined by transforming a traditional software company into a hyperscale cloud powerhouse worth over $870 billion, executing one of the most successful strategic pivots in technology history, and doing so while maintaining an unusually modest public presence.

Personal Life

Catz has been married to Gal Tirosh, a former soccer coach, since 1997, and they have two sons. Despite her demanding career, she has managed to maintain privacy around her personal life and family. She continues to reside in California, balancing her responsibilities as executive vice chair of Oracle with her various board commitments and advisory roles. Her journey from a six-year-old immigrant from Israel to one of the most powerful executives in technology stands as a remarkable testament to determination, strategic thinking, and quiet but effective leadership.