Safra Catz and John Stankey are senior American corporate executives associated with Oracle and AT&T, but there is no publicly documented direct personal, family or formal business partnership between them as of September 30, 2026. Catz is now Executive Vice Chair of Oracle’s board after serving as CEO for more than a decade, while Stankey is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of AT&T. Their current titles are confirmed in recent company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: Oracle’s 2026 proxy statement and AT&T’s 2026 proxy statement.
There is, however, a documented connection between their companies. Oracle says AT&T has been an Oracle customer since 2000 and has used products including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle Field Service, Cloud ERP and EPM. In August 2024, Oracle also announced that AT&T IoT connectivity and network APIs were being incorporated into Oracle’s Enterprise Communications Platform. That announcement named Oracle executive Andrew Morawski and AT&T executive Sarita Rao, rather than Catz or Stankey, so the corporate relationship should not be presented as a personal partnership between the two executives. Oracle’s AT&T customer profile and 2024 Oracle-AT&T announcement document that distinction.
The more useful way to understand Safra Catz and John Stankey is through their separate careers: Catz built her reputation around finance, acquisitions and enterprise technology at Oracle, while Stankey spent four decades moving through technology, operations, strategy, media and telecommunications at AT&T and its predecessor businesses.
Safra Catz’s Career at Oracle
Safra Catz joined Oracle in 1999 after a career in investment banking. Oracle’s biography says she previously worked at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, where she became a managing director in investment banking. She joined Oracle’s board in 2001 and went on to hold some of the company’s most important financial and executive positions. Oracle’s executive biography and its 2026 proxy statement record that progression.
Her education combined business and law. The Wharton School identifies her as W’83 and L’86, reflecting undergraduate study at Wharton followed by a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton’s alumni biography confirms those affiliations.
At Oracle, Catz served as president beginning in 2004 and held the chief financial officer role during several periods before becoming CEO in September 2014. She initially shared the top job with Mark Hurd and later remained Oracle’s sole CEO after Hurd’s death in 2019.
Acquisitions and the PeopleSoft deal
Acquisitions became one of the most visible themes of Catz’s Oracle career. One of the clearest examples is PeopleSoft. Oracle announced a definitive agreement in December 2004 to acquire PeopleSoft for approximately $10.3 billion. Oracle’s original PeopleSoft announcement gives that contemporaneous transaction value.
Institutional profiles have described Catz as playing a major role in the PeopleSoft takeover. A retrospective Wharton Magazine profile associated her closely with the transaction, while Carnegie Corporation has also described her as a driving force behind major Oracle deals. Those accounts support the broader point that acquisitions were central to her work, although they do not justify assigning every Oracle acquisition personally to her or using unsupported aggregate figures.
Her influence also extended well beyond transactions. During her years as CEO, Oracle expanded its cloud infrastructure and cloud applications businesses as the company competed more directly in large-scale enterprise cloud computing. Oracle has credited Catz with helping lead that transition, while independent reporting has also placed her tenure within Oracle’s broader shift toward cloud and AI infrastructure. The safest description is that she led Oracle through a period in which cloud computing became increasingly central to the company’s strategy, rather than attributing that transformation to one executive alone.
Catz’s Role in 2026
Catz stopped serving as Oracle CEO on September 22, 2025. Oracle appointed Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia as Chief Executive Officers and named Catz Executive Vice Chair of the board. The change was disclosed in Oracle’s September 2025 Form 8-K.
Her current status matters because older profiles still describe her as Oracle’s chief executive. As of September 30, 2026, the more recent Oracle proxy statement identifies her as Executive Vice Chair, not CEO.
Catz also remains active outside Oracle’s day-to-day executive structure. Stanford lists her as a lecturer at its Graduate School of Business, and on March 25, 2026, the White House announced her appointment to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Stanford’s faculty directory and the White House appointment announcement provide the current public record for those roles.
John Stankey’s Long Career at AT&T
John T. Stankey took a different route to corporate leadership. Rather than moving from banking into technology, he built nearly his entire professional career within the telecommunications businesses that evolved into today’s AT&T.
AT&T says his career with the company began in 1985. Over the following decades, he held positions spanning information technology, network technology, operations, business services, corporate strategy and media. His roles included chief information officer, chief technology officer, chief strategy officer and senior operating positions across major AT&T businesses. AT&T’s current executive biography summarizes that progression.
Stankey earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from UCLA. UCLA Anderson has also described him as a first-generation college student and in 2025 named him the recipient of its John E. Anderson Distinguished Alumni Award. UCLA Anderson’s 2025 profile provides that background.
WarnerMedia and AT&T’s media strategy
Stankey’s career moved deeply into media before he became AT&T CEO. He served as CEO of WarnerMedia from June 2018 through April 2020, according to AT&T’s 2026 proxy statement.
That distinction is important: Stankey led WarnerMedia, not Warner Bros. Discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery did not exist until AT&T later separated WarnerMedia and combined it with Discovery.
The transaction was announced on May 17, 2021. Under the original agreement, AT&T was to receive $43 billion, subject to adjustment, while AT&T shareholders were expected to receive 71% of the equity in the combined company. Those terms appear in the SEC-filed transaction announcement.
Independent reporting also documented Stankey’s personal involvement in discussions with Discovery CEO David Zaslav. A Reuters reconstruction of the deal said the two executives held direct talks about combining the businesses, and contemporaneous SEC material from Discovery referred to discussions between them about a common vision for the companies. The transaction closed in April 2022, creating Warner Bros. Discovery.
From AT&T CEO to Chairman
Stankey became AT&T’s CEO and president in July 2020 after serving as president and chief operating officer from October 2019. In February 2025, he also became chairman of the board.
As of September 30, 2026, AT&T’s SEC disclosures identify him as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President. A July 22, 2026 SEC certification confirms all three titles.
His tenure has coincided with a substantial narrowing of AT&T’s strategic focus. After the WarnerMedia separation, the company has increasingly emphasized wireless, fiber broadband and advanced connectivity rather than maintaining the broad media portfolio it previously assembled.
AT&T’s September 2026 investor update describes fiber and 5G as central to its strategy. In the second quarter of 2026, the company reported $31.6 billion in revenue, $12.3 billion in adjusted EBITDA and $4.7 billion in free cash flow. Those are company-level results rather than a measure of Stankey’s personal performance, but they provide current context for the business he leads. AT&T’s investor-relations page carries the latest completed quarterly figures available as of September 30.
How Their Career Paths Differ
Catz and Stankey reached the top of large technology-driven companies through very different professional routes.
Catz entered Oracle after investment banking and became closely associated with financial management, corporate transactions, enterprise software and later cloud infrastructure. Her path moved from finance and operating leadership into the CEO role and, after 2025, to board-level leadership.
Stankey developed within one telecommunications corporate system over roughly four decades. His career moved through technology, operations, strategy, entertainment and media before he became AT&T’s chief executive.
Their current roles are also structurally different. Catz is no longer Oracle’s operating CEO. She serves as Executive Vice Chair of the board. Stankey remains AT&T’s chief executive while also chairing the board.
What Actually Connects Oracle and AT&T?
The strongest documented connection between Safra Catz and John Stankey is not personal; it sits between Oracle and AT&T.
Oracle says AT&T has been a customer since 2000 and has used Oracle technologies across cloud infrastructure, field service and financial systems. The companies’ relationship became more visible in August 2024, when Oracle announced that AT&T IoT connectivity and network APIs would be incorporated into Oracle’s Enterprise Communications Platform. Oracle’s customer case study and its August 2024 announcement document that relationship.
Nothing in those materials establishes Catz and Stankey as the individual negotiators or managers of the arrangement. That is the key distinction for readers searching for the “Safra Catz and John Stankey connection”: their companies have a real technology relationship, while a direct relationship between the executives themselves has not been publicly documented.
Current Status at a Glance
As of September 30, 2026, Safra Catz is Executive Vice Chair of Oracle’s board, following an Oracle career that began in 1999 and included service as president, CFO and CEO. Her current activities also include a Stanford GSB teaching role and a 2026 appointment to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
John T. Stankey remains Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of AT&T. His career with AT&T and predecessor businesses began in 1985, included leadership of WarnerMedia, and now centers on AT&T’s wireless, fiber and broader connectivity strategy.
The two executives are best understood as separate corporate leaders whose companies operate in overlapping parts of the digital economy. Their names may appear together, but the verified connection is Oracle and AT&T’s business relationship, not a confirmed personal partnership between Catz and Stankey.
