Safra Catz and John Stankey are two of the most recognized leaders in American business. Catz ran Oracle, one of the world’s largest software companies, for more than a decade. Stankey has led AT&T, the country’s biggest telecom brand, since 2020. 

Both built their careers inside large companies and rose to the top through steady, hard work. This article covers who they are, what they have done, and how much they earn. It also looks at how their careers compare and whether they have ever worked together.

Safra Catz and John Stankey at a Glance

Detail	Safra Catz	John Stankey
Full name	Safra Ada Catz	John T. Stankey
Born	December 1, 1961, in Holon, Israel	1962, raised in Los Angeles
Nationality	American	American
Education	Wharton School (1983) and Penn Law JD (1986), University of Pennsylvania	BBA in finance, Loyola Marymount University (1985); MBA, UCLA
Company	Oracle	AT&T
Joined the company	April 1999	January 1985
Became CEO	September 2014 (co-CEO)	July 2020
Current role	Executive vice chair of Oracle’s board	Chairman and CEO of AT&T
Estimated net worth	About $145 million	About $34 million

Who Is Safra Catz?

Safra Catz is an Israeli-born American executive who led Oracle as CEO from 2014 to 2025. She is now the executive vice chair of Oracle’s board. People in the industry know her for tight financial control, fast deal making, and a very low public profile.

Early Life and Education

Catz was born in Holon, Israel, in December 1961. Her family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, when she was six years old. She graduated from Brookline High School and then went to the University of Pennsylvania.

Safra Catz earned her bachelor degree from the Wharton School in 1983. She then finished a law degree at Penn Law in 1986. That mix of finance and law shaped how she later handled contracts, mergers, and negotiations.

Career Progression at Oracle

Catz started her career in investment banking at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in 1986. She worked there for 13 years and became a managing director in 1997. Oracle founder Larry Ellison later recruited her, and she joined the company in April 1999 as a senior vice president.

Her rise inside Oracle was quick. Here are the main steps:

• 2001: Joined Oracle’s board of directors
• 2004: Named president
• 2005 to 2008: Served as chief financial officer
• 2011 to 2014: Served as chief financial officer again
• 2014: Became co-CEO alongside Mark Hurd when Ellison moved to chairman and chief technology officer
• 2019: Became sole CEO after Hurd’s death
• 2025: Handed the CEO role to new co-CEOs and moved into the executive vice chair role

Current Role and Responsibilities

Since September 2025, Catz has served as Oracle’s executive vice chair. Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia now run the company as co-CEOs. Magouyrk came from Oracle’s cloud infrastructure business, and Sicilia led its industry applications.

Catz stays on the board and works with Ellison on long-term direction. She also joined the board of The Walt Disney Company in 2018. Her focus today is strategy and oversight, not daily operations.

Who Is John Stankey?

John Stankey is the chairman and CEO of AT&T. He has spent his entire career at the company, which makes him one of the longest-serving leaders in the telecom industry. He is known for a direct style and a focus on long-term network investment.

Early Life and Education

Stankey was born in 1962 and grew up in Los Angeles. He is the youngest of three children. His father worked as an insurance underwriter, and his mother was a homemaker.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Loyola Marymount University in 1985. He later completed an MBA at UCLA. John Stankey started at AT&T the same year he graduated.

Career Progression at AT&T

Stankey joined AT&T in January 1985 and has held a wide range of jobs since. He ran business solutions, operations, and technology teams. He also served as chief strategy officer and led the AT&T entertainment group.

The key steps in his climb look like this:

• 1985: Joined the company
• 2015 to 2018: Led the AT&T entertainment group
• 2018 to 2019: Ran WarnerMedia after AT&T bought it
• October 2019: Became president and chief operating officer
• July 2020: Became CEO, replacing Randall Stephenson
• February 2025: Was elected chairman of the board

Current Role and Responsibilities

Stankey now holds both the CEO and chairman titles at AT&T. The company brings in more than $125 billion in yearly revenue and serves more than 100 million subscribers across wireless and broadband. About 2.5 million of its customers are businesses.

He sets the company’s long-term plan, talks to investors each quarter, and leads its push into fiber and 5G. He does not receive extra pay for serving as chairman.

Leadership Styles and Business Strategies

Catz and Stankey run very different businesses, but both lean on discipline and planning. Catz is a deal maker. Stankey is a network builder.

Safra Catz Acquisition and Growth Strategy

Catz built her reputation on buying companies and folding them into Oracle quickly. She has overseen more than 100 deals. The largest include BEA Systems for about $8.5 billion, Sun Microsystems for about $7.4 billion, and NetSuite for about $9.3 billion.

Her approach is simple. Buy a company with strong customers, cut costs fast, and add its products to Oracle’s lineup. She also watches spending closely, which kept margins healthy for years.

In her later years as CEO, Oracle pushed hard into cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence. The company signed large cloud agreements and built more data center capacity to meet demand.

John Stankey Restructuring and Customer Strategy

When Stankey took over in 2020, AT&T owned a large media business and carried heavy debt. He chose to simplify. WarnerMedia was spun off and combined with Discovery in 2022, and AT&T went back to its core business of connecting people.

His plan since then is built around fiber and 5G working together. AT&T sells home internet and mobile service as a bundle, which tends to keep customers longer. The company has spent more than $150 billion on its wireless and wireline networks since 2021.

Recent moves show how far that plan has gone:

• AT&T closed its $5.75 billion purchase of Lumen’s consumer fiber business in February 2026
• The Lumen deal added about one million customers and more than four million fiber locations
• AT&T agreed to buy spectrum from EchoStar for about $23 billion, and regulators cleared the sale in 2026
• The company is also retiring old copper lines and expanding its fixed wireless product, Internet Air

Major Achievements and Industry Impact

Safra Catz helped turn Oracle from a database company into a full technology provider. She guided it through leadership changes, major acquisitions, and the shift to cloud computing. When Hurd died in 2019, she held the company steady as sole CEO.

John Stankey reshaped AT&T during a difficult stretch. He cleared out the media businesses, reduced the company’s focus, and put money behind its networks. AT&T had about 32 million fiber locations at the end of 2025 and aims to reach 40 million by the end of 2026 and more than 60 million by 2030.

Both leaders also kept their companies financially stable while making big bets. That is hard to do in industries where technology shifts quickly and competitors are well funded.

Net Worth and Executive Compensation

Safra Catz’s net worth is estimated at $145 million. Most of that comes from her Oracle shares, which she has built up over more than 25 years at the company. The value moves with Oracle’s stock price, so the number changes over time.

Her yearly pay has varied a lot. Oracle reported her total compensation at $10.1 million for fiscal 2026, which ended May 31, 2026. In 2022, her package was worth about $138 million because of large stock awards, which made her one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country that year.

John Stankey’s net worth is estimated at $34 million, based on the value of his AT&T shares. His full financial picture is not public. His total pay for 2025 was about $30 million, up from about $26 million the year before.

Most of Stankey’s pay comes from stock awards tied to company performance. His base salary is around $2 million. Catz’s pay also leans heavily on stock, which is why her yearly totals swing so widely.

What Connects Safra Catz and John Stankey?

The two leaders do not share a company, a board, or a family. The links between them are mostly about their industries and their paths to the top.

Professional Connections Between Oracle and AT&T

Oracle and AT&T have worked together as companies for years. In 2017, AT&T added Oracle’s cloud connection service, FastConnect, to its NetBond for Cloud program. That let business customers reach Oracle’s cloud over AT&T’s private network.

These are typical business ties between a major software provider and a major network provider. Large companies that run Oracle systems often depend on AT&T connectivity to reach them.

There is no public record of Catz and Stankey working together in person on a project or serving on the same board.

Similarities and Differences in Their Careers

Both leaders spent most of their careers building a company from within. Both reached the CEO job after years in finance, strategy, or operations. While both also led through major changes in how their industries work.

The differences are just as clear.

Area	Safra Catz	John Stankey
Career start	Investment banking	Telecom, at AT&T
Years at current company	Since 1999	Since 1985
Main strength	Deal making and cost control	Network investment and restructuring
Industry	Software and cloud	Wireless and broadband
Time as CEO	2014 to 2025	2020 to present
Board role today	Executive vice chair	Chairman

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Safra Catz Still Oracle’s CEO?

No, she moved to executive vice chair in September 2025, and Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia now serve as Oracle’s co-CEOs.

Is John Stankey Still AT&T’s CEO?

Yes, he has been AT&T’s CEO since July 2020 and has also served as chairman since February 2025.

Have Safra Catz and John Stankey Worked Together?

There is no public record of them working together personally, though Oracle and AT&T have partnered as companies on cloud connectivity.

Are Safra Catz and John Stankey Related?

No, there is no known family connection between them.

What Are Safra Catz and John Stankey Worth?

Catz’s net worth is estimated at $145 million, and Stankey’s is estimated at $34 million.

Final Thoughts 

Safra Catz and John Stankey took different roads to the top of two very different companies, but their stories share a common thread of patience, planning, and a willingness to make big decisions. 

Catz built Oracle through acquisitions and a move into the cloud, and she now guides it from the board as executive vice chair. Stankey stayed with AT&T for four decades, simplified the business, and bet heavily on fiber and 5G as CEO and chairman. Their companies have worked together in the past, but the two leaders have followed separate paths, and each has left a clear mark on the industry they work in.