Oracle Revives Co-CEO Structure After More Than Five Years as Global Companies Revisit Shared Leadership

Stronger specialization, lower management risk

Sharing leadership gains importance as companies expand across businesses

Oracle brings back co-CEOs after more than five years

Comcast and Spotify have also switched

The model looked finished. Now global companies are turning to co-CEOs again.

More companies are adopting co-CEO structures to strengthen expertise and reduce management risk. The trend spans industries from Goldman Sachs to Netflix. As companies move into a broader range of businesses, allocating responsibility and matching leaders to their strengths has become more important.

The shift drew attention in September 2025. Over nine days, Oracle, media company Comcast and music-streaming service Spotify each announced two chief executive officers. All three had previously been run by a single CEO.

Oracle first adopted the structure in September 2014, when founder Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO and Mark Hurd and Safra Catz took over. Media reports at the time said the company avoided stressing the “co-” label and referred to both simply as CEOs. After Hurd’s sudden death in September 2019, Oracle returned to a single-CEO structure under Catz. The company shifted back in September 2025, when Catz became vice chair at Amazon and Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia were named co-CEOs.

When Catz became Oracle’s sole CEO, some argued that the co-CEO model was dead. Oracle was not alone. Salesforce and SAP, which had also used the structure, both reverted to a single CEO. SAP reduced the post to one seat after the Covid-19 pandemic spread, citing simpler decision-making. The move came six months after Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein were appointed co-CEOs in October 2019.

The structure is drawing renewed attention as the importance of management specialization and risk hedging grows. It can create complementary strengths. One executive can respond quickly to industry trends and drive technological innovation, while the other focuses on stable operations and quality control. If one steps down, leadership continuity can still be preserved.

Another advantage is that co-CEOs hold equal standing, unlike traditional C-suite executives such as a chief operating officer or chief technology officer. Dino Otranto, Fortescue's chief executive for metals and operations, told the Financial Times that co-CEOs make the boundaries of responsibility clear. That gives each executive room to focus on the business area he or she oversees.

The model is more likely to succeed when the leaders have worked together effectively in the past. California Management Review said in a report that the partnership between Marc Benioff and Keith Block at Salesforce succeeded because of mutual respect and effective decision-making. By contrast, the later co-leadership structure with Bret Taylor could not last because the balance of power remained tilted toward Benioff.

Son Ju-hyung, Hankyung.com reporter, handbro@hankyung.com