Heard on Friday from a semi reliable source that the entire leadership (VPs) or Oracles analyst relations team was suddenly canned and the team’s directors and senior directors were put under a VP of PR. This is after 1/3 of the team was let go in the August purge of marketing people.
So it appears layoffs are continuing, at least in some quarters. Anytime Oracle gets rid of VPs of any type it’s a good thing for employees (and stockholders).
If that is true ….. watch out NTAP folks!
Heard RR’s landed a great job at NTAP as SVP.
I was directly under the SVP of AR and wasn’t given any recognition for any of my contributions and left a company I loved feeling totally defeated. That’s not the way your treat your team members, RR. You ruined my career as I planned on being there long-term but you blew all my chances. Good to see you depart.
I agree that she was indeed a master at taking credit for other peoples work. I worked with her indirectly and was aware of how she managed to “con” the senior leadership team. Whoever discovered her ways & showed her the door deserves a huge thanks. By the way, she did the very same at her previous companies. She did not even wait out the mandatory cooling off period when she “left” SAP to join competitor Oracle whilst other folks were held to the contract (waiting months) before they could join a competitor. She sure knows how to work upper management. Thank goodness she’s gone. If she joins your team, run….
RR was great at managing upwards & had an inner circle that enabled her to have a pretty long run at Oracle. Kudos to the management team for finally realising the brainpower and positive impact was delivered by the bright minds in her team who weren’t recognised for their contributions.
A master delegator, a task master, and dishonest to the core for abusing her position. Her business trips back to Europe coincided with her friends birthdays etc etc - how on earth did she get away with that jet setting lifestyle during office hours? I Erika’s with hee at SAP and indirectly at Oracle and was amazed to see how she “abuses” her position to further herself with no recognition for too perforhets (junior) in the team.
Bye bye RR
I don't know what happened specifically to some of the complainers here, but I worked on RR's team for a number of years and had an excellent experience with her as a highly inspirational leader, very trustworthy, and someone who cared about everyone on a personal level. In fact RR was the best team leader I ever had during my Oracle career, and I had a number of them!
Sounds to me like some sour grapes happened to a couple of people who use this forum to air their dirty laundry, of which I saw and experienced exactly zero when I was on RR's team.
I can't say enough about what a great, passionate, smart, caring, inspirational and forward thinking leader that RR was, and she would excel running any AR team out there. Some company is really going to benefit from her presence, foresight and leadership !!
Sure seems to be a lot of negativity and vitriol channeled toward this RR person. Who are these former marketing and AR team leaders and “CC” and “GZ” anyway?
Seems a lot of complainers hiding behind false aliases. Why don’t you use your real names you coward$!!
RR is a narcissist & took advantage of her team to succeed without ever giving anyone the credit they deserved. Despicable.
She was always on overseas trips flying first class to fancy locations & many wonder how she got away with this for so long on the company dime. While she was wining & dining with her family & friends in Europe, the team was delivering all the hard work. How on earth did she think this was acceptable?
Her LinkedIn post is a joke and I feel so sorry for the company that hires her - watch out as she will abuse her position and power like she did at this company.
So glad to see her go. RR: You should be ashamed of yourself!!
This is all so pathetic. But so typical of Oracle leaders.
RR has a Steve Jobs type "hero - a$$ho-e" mentality. You are either one of her favorites, or you are a goat who she doesn't give the time of day to. And that status can literally change overnight.
With RR, everything was always about HER, and if you could help HER. If she felt you could help her, then you were a hero. But if you fell out of favor, you were a goat and would stay that way, in that status, until (or IF) there was ever a situation where you could help her again. Then you would be back to HERO status as long as you could help her.
Her biggest issue was that she REFUSED to promote people on her team. She would get them right where she wanted them, helping her, and then she would keep them there as long as they were producing, working hard, and making her look good to Oracle executives. No promotion or reward for your hard work.
Eventually after she was leading the team for about 2-3 years, people started figuring this out and eventually (in the year before the pandemic) started leaving the team, and/or leaving Oracle. The drip started out as gradual, and was delayed by the pandemic as people were worried about their jobs. After folks figured out that it was safe (again) to leave, they started leaving in DROVES in 2021, absolutely decimating RR's team.
After some months, enough of the team's senior brain-trust of worker-bees had left, that RR finally figured out that she was in a major crisis, and the wheels had come off her bus under her very nose. Her team was absolutely dead in the water, and she didn't even realize it before it was too late (mainly because she was so focused on brown-nosing Oracle executives).
It was only a matter of time before the empire she had built totally collapsed and imploded on itself. As soon as her main patron (her manager AK) left, she was pretty much done. It was just a matter of time. Which turned out to be the case.
It will be interesting to see where she lands next, and how she "uses" her way to the top of that organization too. Humble and being a servant leader is not a part of RR's vocabulary. Using and abusing people for her own gain and benefit and to support her own lifestyle very much IS her vocabulary.
Yes, she always stole credit from her entire team and used it to position herself positively with Oracle executives. That resulted in her promotion which in and of itself was a joke.
Meanwhile, the hardworking team under RR got peanuts. Never a raise, never any RSUs. Many people didn’t get raises for upwards of 5 years, sometimes even pushing 10 years. Once every few years there would be a bonus — typically about $1,000 or $1,500 gross before taxes.
RR indeed lived a jet setting lifestyle, frivolously traveling all over the world often at her own whims, on the company dime going to fancy places in Europe and elsewhere. She would always be visible at the analyst events, jogging the spotlight and NEVER giving the spotlight to her subordinate managers or to the team at large.
Her subordinate managers were 100% powerless and she ruled them with an iron fist. She always pulled all the strings and the team managers had zero autonomy to make decisions. They were essentially there as proxies.
RR has zero self awareness as to how badly she was hated by those on her former team at Oracle. She thought she was loved by all and basked in the fake sunlight glow of adulation and smoke that people on her team had to blow her way to survive. But as a veteran of a decade working on that team (and there for her entire tenure) she was universally DESPISED by those she held down, held back, and refused to compensate for their hard work.
She directly enriched herself at the expense of dozens of others. Karma has a way of coming back eventually, and I have zero doubt it will in her situation too.
Very happy to see RR go. Her jet setting lifestyle etc was made possible by the hardwork of the team who didn’t get any credit. Worst leader I’ve reported to in my 15 year career. She was the absolute worst boss I had.
Yes….. RR just posted this self-serving and credit taking drivel to LinkedIn. She is so self-unaware that she doesn’t even realize how she took the credit from her once-large, now-decimated team.
How utterly pathetic.
———————
My time as Head of AR at Oracle came to an end. This is a good time to reflect on key achievements. During my tenure at Oracle I turned the AR team into one of the top teams in the industry. From the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations Website: "A real surprise for keen industry observers is Oracle shooting up in third position after years at the bottom of the league." In 2016 Oracle was 6th, Oracle placed 3rd in 2017 against very strong competition and won the IIAR AR Team of the Year award in 2019 and 2020.
We converted >50% of the most influential analysts from negative to neutral-positive perception, increased positive analyst perception by >140%, and for those analysts defined as intransigents saw increased willingness to engage. Oracle is participating in almost 50 Gartner Magic Quadrants and we saw a close to 70% positive movement from 2018 to 2022. In 2022 Oracle moved to perfect in a more significant way compared to all major competitors in five of our six key MQs as validated by Spotlight AR.
More achievements:
I had good years of steep learning curves, differentiated growing experiences, and a lot of diverse developing. I was able to develop as a person and as a professional. Personally developing my leadership style, collaboration tactics, strategic skills, and professionally developing my AR-, MarCom-, and technical know-how. I’m grateful that I had this inclusive opportunity to work with incredible people from all over the world, from all generations, and every background teaching me so much on so many levels. I experienced people joining, staying, moving on. It was a valuable time, and I’m leaving with a smile based on all the memories generated and achievements made. As a team comprised of product people, marketing folks, sellers and specifically AR managers we made a difference. We won a lot of analysts hearts & minds and positively moved our dot on an essential number of evaluations.
Finally! Glad to see RR leaving. She was terrible & took credit for other peoples work. Shameless.
It did not happen like what was said here. I went into the office and my manager + HR called me via Zoom.
This rumor-mongering site is full of disinformation and fake news. Nothing posted here can or should be trusted.
This entire thread is a load of cr-p. 25% or 35% of our team was not let go.
It was 60%, and more is coming after CloudWorld. Letting my team members go was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my long career.
Doesn’t matter - I’m retiring anyway.
Oracle has cut nearly 50% of its analyst relations team. It will take about a year, but we will start seeing a major downward shift in Oracle's placement in various Magic Quadrants and Waves vs. competitors, sooner for products like CX that have already been axed. You have to dedicate people to managing this stuff, you can't have PR people doing it, and product people have too much other stuff to do to dedicate much time to it.
The slow downward spiral of Oracle will be continuing, actually accelerating.
But the good thing is that the horrible leaders that nobody liked are gone. The bad thing is that their evil deeds and false promises negatively impacted so many innocent and hardworking team members, many of whom are now gone and not of their own doing.
This is almost too good to be true. Seriously.
If really true, that's an awesome story about that VP literally getting fired while in his car on the way to work. That is one story for the ages.
It is so excellent that these long-time abusers of employees are getting their due. Finally.
Absolutely pathetic.
I heard that one of these mentioned VPs (PP) was fired by HR receiving a phone call on his drive into work in Redwood Shores. When he received the phone call his email and company network access had already been turned off, LOL.
I didn't hear if he turned around and went back home, or if he continued into work where he couldn't enter the building due to his badge being turned off. LOL.
Sounds like all of this was very well-orchestrated in advance and designed to cause maximum humiliation to these evil analyst relations VPs. Only a company like Oracle would be that spiteful, despite the treatment being exceedingly well-deserved by these VPs' actions over many years.
Is there justice in this world with people like this? You decide.
Learning about HOW the firings of these two leaders were carried out by HR and leadership was especially satisfying. It was cynical yet utterly beautifully accomplished. Neither leader was expecting to get canned because they’d just finished canning 35% of their own team, so the leaders felt safe, smug & secure.
Like boiling a frog in a pot of water, these leaders never even knew their own necks were on the chopping block until the guillotine had sliced their heads off.
Lol. Oracle corporate intrigue and cynicism at its very finest.
It’s always satisfying to see people’s personal empires within Oracle collapse and implode. Even more so when they are unceremoniously FIRED.
Re: But karma always catches up to wicked people
Mao and Stalin, two of the 20th century's biggest mass mu---rers, died of old age in their beds.
Better to pay here than, later.
But karma always catches up to wicked people
Mao and Stalin, two of the 20th century's biggest mass mu---rers, died of old age in their beds.
It is fitting justice that these two leaders were axed. They were both very horrible leaders who took advantage of their team’s good and hard work to line their pockets and profit.
And now they can no longer do this. Unfortunately and sadly 35% of their team was sacrificed before they were. But karma always catches up to wicked people, and these two leaders of the Oracle Analyst Relations team epitomized the worst in how Oracle leaders typically operate.
No one is sad to see RR and PP go.
“I do not understand how these people have gotten away with abusing employees as they have. “
Really? The few protections that employees have in the US don’t hold a candle to the ones given overseas.
Unions? Nope.
Sixty days notice before a layoff? You gotta be kidding.
Having to rely on your employer for health insurance? Not a worry where that isn’t coupled to your work.
Pay transparency? Lots of talk about this but US employers rely on the obfuscation to their advantage.
We’ve been told over and over again about American excellence and ingenuity. Brainwashed even.
A good US employer will use a benefit program to soften these hard edges, and good old human compassion to deal with the wetware. Find those and vote with your feet. It’s the only thing we have, but keep up the fight!
I do not understand how these people have gotten away with abusing employees as they have.
Unreal how the hard working people have gone years w/o raises & the VPs having had no accountability and used their orgs budgets to line their own pockets. This is all blatant SEC Code of Ethics violations and I guess 4 years ago an Atlanta VP took work from subcontractor which subcontractor described that he filed an ethics issue with Oracle (I’m thinking that he probably Oracle was an equal opportunity company) and , of course his contract was cancelled and manager now VP filed U.S. Patent and manipulated another manager and an employee and himself as inventors.
If will be interesting when this investigated.
How does this happen?
As a current member of this team, I can definitively say that no one is shedding tears over this. Well, maybe tears of joy!
These two. Ps were well known for their backstabbing nature and for dangling supposed promotions and raises and then not delivering on them. There are members of our team who have gone 6, 7 and even 10 years without raises. They notoriously underpaid team members and took advantage of them. These VPs RR and PP stole the hard work of the team and used it to justify their own promotions. Yet promotions on the team can be counted very easily on one single hand in recent years.
So nobody is honestly too upset. Any management for our team will be better than what we’ve had.
Oracle is a very top-heavy company, removing anyone from those layers and layers of management is a good idea. More need to go. They do nothing, they add nothing.
If we pay them enough they will keep us on the list!
Next thing you know, Oracle's products will no longer make the Forrester Wave or Gartner Magic Quadrant.
Workday, Salesforce, Microsoft—it's your time to shine!
no great loss