Mark Hurd joins Oracle as president

NEW YORK: Silicon Valley technology giant Oracle has hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard who resigned amid a scandal, as president. Hurd, a close friend of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will replace Charles Phillips, who has resigned, Oracle said in a statement on Monday. Phillips was co-president alongside Safra Catz, who remains in her role. Ellison had slammed HP’s decision to oust Hurd, calling the actions of HP’s board “cowardly”.

Hurd resigned from HP on August 6, after a probe into sexual harassment allegations. HP said at the time that he filed inaccurate expense reports related to Jodie Fisher, a marketing contractor who worked for Hurd’s office from 2007 through 2009. “Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,” said Ellison on Monday.

Shares of HP are down 13% since Hurd’s resignation. Plucked from relative obscurity to head HP, Hurd is credited with resuscitating the technology giant by cutting costs and pursuing ambitious acquisitions.

HP said the expense reports were meant to hide a “close personal relationship” with Fisher, a sometime actress who has appeared in television shows and movies. Oracle, the world’s third largest software maker, competes with HP as well as with International Business Machines and SAP. “I believe Oracle’s strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage,” Hurd said in Monday’s statement. In June, Oracle reported a quarterly profit that exceeded Street projections.