Thomas Kurian

Thomas Kurian is the chief executive officer of Google Cloud, which he joined in January 2019, and a former senior executive at Oracle Corporation.

Thomas Kurian at Oracle OpenWorld in 2010.

Early life

Thomas Kurian was born to P.C. Kurian and his wife Molly in 1966 in Pampady village of Kottayam district in Kerala, India. Kurian senior was a chemical engineer and the general manager of Graphite India.[1] Thomas Kurian was one among four brothers including his identical twin George Kurian, who is currently CEO of NetApp.

As their father's career involved moving around India, the twins boarded at the Jesuit-run St Joseph's Boys High School in Bengaluru. Both were accepted to the prestigious IIT Madras. There they both took SAT tests and sent the results to various colleges, including Princeton University, which offered both of them partial scholarship places.[2] At the age of 17, along with George Kurian,[3] he moved to the United States in 1986. Kurian graduated with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering, which he graduated summa cum laude.

McKinsey and Stanford

Kurian started his career with McKinsey and Company as a consultant serving clients in the software, telecommunications, and financial services industries for 6 years in London and Brussels.[4][5] He also pursured an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

At the time, George was working for Oracle. In 1996, the brothers switched companies when George was hired by McKinsey, and Thomas, by Oracle [6]

Oracle

Kurian joined Oracle in 1996, initially holding various product management and development positions. His first executive role was as Vice President of Oracle's e-Business division. In this role, he drove a number of company-wide initiatives focused on transforming Oracle into an e-Business.

Next Kurian took responsibility for the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family. Under his leadership, that business became the company's fastest-growing business and the industry’s leading middleware product suite.[4][7][8][9][10]

Later, Kurian served as a Senior Vice President of Oracle's Server Technologies Division responsible for the development and delivery of Oracle Application Servers. He played a key role in bringing Oracle 9i application server to market.[11][12] Application server software became Oracle's fastest-growing business primarily because of his efforts.[13] Kurian served as a member of Oracle’s Executive Committee for 13 years. He led 35,000-people software development team in 32 countries with an R&D budget of $4 billion. Besides, he also helped in the transformation of Oracle’s products with the introduction of leading suite of Cloud Services, led 60 software acquisitions and Oracle’s 45 Cloud data centres.[14]

As the President of Product Development, he oversaw Oracle's 3,000-odd product development efforts. He was responsible for development and delivery of Oracle’s software product portfolio including Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and ERP, CRM, and supply chain management applications.[4][11][15][16][17]

Thomas Kurian was the 18th highest-paid man in the US in 2010, according to CNN.[18] He was also the 5th highest-paid tech executive in 2010.[19]

On September 6, 2018, Kurian announced he was taking extended time off from the company.[20] Kurian and Larry Ellison reportedly had a falling out over the direction of its cloud business.[6]

On September 28, 2018 he resigned from as president of product development at Oracle.[21]

Google

Kurian joined Google's Cloud organization in November 2018. During his first year at Google, Kurian focused on selling GSuite applications to enterprise clients. He has reorganized the sales team to align with Sales practices of enterprise clients.[22]

References
  1. "New Oracle chief's Kerala roots". The Hindu. 11 January 2015. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  2. at 09:38, Chris Mellor 7 Jul 2016. "Three years in: Can Kurian heal sickly NetApp's woes?". www.theregister.co.uk.
  3. "New World Pioneers. George Kurian lays out future vision of humankind built on social consciousness". July 18, 2019.
  4. "Thomas Kurian - Executive Biography". Oracle.com. 2010-09-07. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  5. "Thomas Kurian". Stanford Graduate School of Business.
  6. Shende, Neha (November 29, 2018). "Why Google Cloud's new CEO Thomas Kurian quit Oracle after 22 years" – via The Economic Times.
  7. "Oracle Fusion Middleware Wins Two InfoWorld Technology of the Year Awards" (Press release). News.thomasnet.com. 2008-01-15. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  8. "Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic Application Integration Projects". Gartner.com. 2010-10-18. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  9. "Magic Quadrant for Application Infrastructure for Systematic SOA-Style Application Projects". Gartner.com. 2010-10-21. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  10. "Magic Quadrant for Shared SOA Interoperability Infrastructure Projects". Gartner.com. 2010-10-21. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  11. "Thomas Kurian: Executive Profile & Biography - Businessweek". Investing.businessweek.com. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  12. "2007 JavaOne Conference -General Session Speakers". Java.sun.com. 2007-05-08. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  13. "Can app servers revive Oracle?". CNET News. News.cnet.com. 2002-05-22. Retrieved 2014-08-08.
  14. "Indian American Thomas Kurian is the new CEO of Google Cloud: Here's what you need to know about him". November 17, 2018.
  15. "Kurian Thomas profile". People.forbes.com. 2009-08-21. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  16. E. Abraham Mathew and Srinivas R (2011-05-16). "For Oracle every revolution is an evolution". CIOL Interviews. Ciol.com. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  17. "Oracle's Software Development Reins in New Hands". PCWorld Business Center. Pcworld.com. 2009-07-15. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  18. "25 highest-paid men - Thomas Kurian (18)". FORTUNE. Money.cnn.com. 2011-09-29. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  19. Horn, Leslie (2011-11-10). "Oracle Execs, Apple's Tim Cook Among Highest-Paid in Tech". PCMag.com. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  20. Jay Greene (2018-09-06). "Top Oracle Software Executive to Take Extended Leave". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
  21. Levy, Ari (September 28, 2018). "Oracle says Kurian has resigned as president three weeks after he left to take time off". CNBC.
  22. "Thomas Kurian on his first year as Google Cloud CEO".
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