Bengaluru: Larry Ellison’s Oracle, a dominant software company in the world has a new president in the form of Bengalurian Thomas Kurian. He was  elevated as president of Oracle responsible for software development, making him perhaps the single most senior executive in the company after co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd. Until his elevation, Kurian was executive VP (product development).

Oracle chairman Larry Ellison wrote an email to employees to announce Kurian’s elevation. “I’m pleased to announce that Thomas Kurian has been promoted to president of Oracle, responsible for software development. He has a long track record of developing suites of software products that go to achieve pre-eminent success in the marketplace. His first major engineering effort was developing the Oracle suite of Fusion Middleware,” he wrote. Oracle Fusion Middleware is a business innovation platform for the enterprise and the cloud that enables enterprise to create and run applications maximizing IT efficiency.

Ellison, in his email to employees on Thursday, said Kurian was focusing on engineering products required to transition software technology to the Oracle Cloud. “The transition is going well with the Oracle cloud sales starting to take off…The world can get a glimpse of how well Thomas and his team are doing their job,” he said.

The 48-year-old Kurian, joined the $38-billion US company in 1996.  Kurian is an alumnus of Bengaluru’s St Joseph’s Boys High School. He holds a BA in electrical engineering from Princeton University, where he graduated summa cum laude (highest distinction). He has an MBA from Stanford University where he was an Arjay Miller scholar. He has served as an advisory member on the boards of several international venture funds and software companies. In Oracle, he has held various product management and development positions.

As per information available on the company website,  the highest designation among executives below the CEOs is executive vice-president.