Charles Phillips

Charles E. Phillips (born June 1959) is an American business executive in the tech industry.

He is the co-founder of Recognize, a focused investment firm.

Charles E. Phillips, Jr. was born in June 1959 in Little Rock, Arkansas, where his father was stationed in the Air Force.

During his childhood his family moved often from state to state, and to Europe as well.

Phillips was fascinated by computers and technology from an early age, and spent his spare time during high school building computers.

His father expected at least one of his four sons to join the Air Force, and Phillips enrolled at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and earned a BS in computer science in 1981.

When his eyesight did not meet the rigorous standard to be a pilot, he accepted a commission in the Marines.

He joined as a second lieutenant, rising to the rank of captain, and was stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he worked on computer systems.

From 1981 to 1986, Phillips was in the U.S. Marine Corps in the 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines artillery unit at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, managing computer systems.

He had joined as a Second Lieutenant and rose through the ranks to become a Captain.

Phillips obtained an MBA from Hampton University in 1986.

Phillips began his civilian career in 1986, and he and his wife Karen moved to New York, where his wife had relatives.

He joined BNY Mellon as vice president of Software, and was at the company for four years.

He then transferred to SoundView Technology Group, where he was senior vice president from 1990 through 1993, and Kidder Peabody, where he was senior vice president from 1990 through 1994.

He also attended New York Law School, obtaining a JD in 1993.

In 1994, he joined Morgan Stanley as an enterprise software-industry analyst in the technology group, and he was promoted to managing director, a role in which he served through 2003.

Phillips spent his time on Wall Street nurturing relationships with hedge funders, venture capitalists, private equity executives, technology CEOs, and other business and financial leaders, and gained a reputation for being one of the most aggressive, connected, influential, and prolific technology investment analysts.

Institutional Investor ranked him the number one Enterprise Software Industry Analyst for ten consecutive years, from 1994 to 2003.

Responsible for Oracle's sales and acquisitions, he utilized his networking, negotiation, and closing skills, and became one of the highest-profile African-Americans in the technology industry in the mid 2000s.

Prior to joining Infor, Phillips was co-president and director of Oracle Corporation from 2003 through 2010, and a managing director in the technology group at Morgan Stanley from 1994 to 2003.

He is also a director at Viacom Corporation.

Among Phillip's industry contacts during his Wall Street years was Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison, who invited him to join Oracle in 2003.

Phillips accepted, and served as co-president and director of Oracle from 2003 to 2010.

Phillips led Oracle's field organization, and during his tenure he oversaw the company's revenue growth of nearly 300%.

He also played a key role in Oracle's long series of acquisitions of 70 companies, including PeopleSoft, BEA Systems, Hyperion Solutions, and Siebel Systems, among others.

In 2007, InformationWeek called him "Oracle's Secret Weapon".

From 2010 to 2019, he was the CEO of Infor, a company that specializes in enterprise software applications for specific industries.

In his first three years as CEO of Infor, Phillips grew the company significantly through numerous strategic acquisitions, created an in-house design agency to improve software user interface and visual appeal, and updated and upgraded software to better meet niche-industry needs.

After seven years growing the company, Phillips resigned from Oracle in September 2010.

In October 2010 Phillips was announced as CEO of Infor, the world's third largest provider of enterprise applications and services, and the world's largest privately owned software company.

He was joined by several high-ranking Oracle executives.

Within four months of being hired, he led Infor's $2 billion acquisition of Lawson Software, a competitor focused on the health care industry, and continued Infor's acquisitions at the rate of two or more per year.

In October 2011, Phillips moved Infor's headquarters from the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Georgia to New York City's Silicon Alley.

He immediately set about re-directing Infor and its efforts, instilling a corporate culture of camaraderie, goodwill, and reward.

He also focused Infor on excellent design and product coherence, establishing product usability and highly attractive modern interface as key components in Infor's software lines.

To optimize user experience design, Phillips and his team formed Hook & Loop, an internal creative agency of writers, designers, developers, and filmmakers who develop software that is beautiful and user-friendly and has social-media type elements.

Infor now maintains a design directive of "work is beautiful", and Hook & Loop is one of the largest digital design agencies in New York City.

In 2014, he led Infor to become the first industry cloud company – the first ERP vendor in the cloud offering complete software products for businesses and unique sub-industries – and by 2018 Infor was also the first ERP provider to make a complete transition to the cloud, with the majority of its customers, applications, and revenues cloud-based.

In 2015 he received an honorary Doctor of Science from City University of New York's New York City College of Technology.

In August 2019 he stepped down as CEO to "focus on strategy development, customer relationships, and new acquisitions", as Infor's Chairman.