Larry Ellison - USA

Born 1944 (now aged 74)

Larry Ellison is an American billionaire and the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, a major enterprise software company.

Larry Ellison has been perhaps the most colourful figure in the global IT industry for the past 15 years. His company, Oracle, has fought off and swallowed up the competition to transform itself from one of a number of database specialists to a provider of complete back-end systems.

Always outspoken, Ellison's undeniably larger-than-life ego would appear to be the driving force behind Oracle's success.

He has steered Oracle into pole position above the mighty SAP by redefining the company as a services provider rather than a software supplier, especially in large government contracts.

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