Vishal Sikka joins Oracle board

BENGALURU: Former Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has joined the Oracle board of directors. Oracle has been one of the biggest competitors to SAP, where Sikka spent 12 years, including as CTO, when he led the development of the breakthrough in-memory platform Hana.
Oracle chairman and CTO Larry Ellison said Sikka is one the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning.“These AI technologies are key foundational elements of the Oracle Cloud’s autonomous infrastructure and intelligent applications. Vishal’s expertise and experience makes him ideally suited to provide strategic vision and expert advice to our company and to our customers,” he said.
Some seven months ago, Sikka was appointed to the supervisory board at BMW. After leaving Infosys in 2017, he founded an AI startup in the US called Vianai Systems that recently secured $50 million in funding. Vianai is seeking to combine technical know-how with a design thinking approach to problem selection, definition and change management. The venture has a high-profile board that includes Alan Kay, Turing Award Winner, Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, and Sebastian Thrun, CEO of the Kitty Hawk Corporation and co-founder and chairman of Udacity.
“For years, the Oracle database has been the heartbeat and life-blood of every large and significant organisation in the world,” said Sikka. “Today, Oracle is the only one of the big four cloud companies that offers both enterprise application suites and secure infrastructure technologies in a single unified cloud. Oracle’s unique position in both applications and infrastructure paves the way for enormous innovation and growth in the times ahead. I am excited to have the opportunity to join the Oracle Board, and be part of this journey.”