By Michal Lev-Ram, writer @FortuneMagazine August 15, 2013: 7:24 AM ET
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New man: Infor CEO Charles Phillips, at his New York City headquarters, is ready for the spotlight.
(Fortune)
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If there's one thing Wall Street and Silicon Valley veterans remember about working with Charles Phillips, it's his number: 1-800-MR-CHUCK. In the 1990s Phillips became one of the most plugged-in software analysts, writing prodigious reports for Morgan Stanley on the revolutions being wrought by the Internet. His expertise made him a star adviser to the most powerful leaders in business; his personal toll-free number passed from one CEO to another, scribbled on cocktail napkins and on business cards Phillips had printed. When Larry Ellison handpicked him to serve as president of Oracle in 2003, he used those connections to help close nearly 70 acquisitions, fueling the database giant's record growth.
A lot has changed since Phillips's wheeling and dealing days. After a series of embarrassing missteps -- both personal and professional -- Phillips has spent the past few years keeping an uncharacteristically low profile. He now runs Infor, a business-software provider. He left the Bay Area and resettled in New York City, and he says the turbulence of being tabloid fodder has died down. (More on that later.) Along the way, Chuck became Charles. And the 1-800 number? It stopped being passed around.
Not that Phillips was on sabbatical. Though Infor is a distant No. 3 enterprise-software supplier, behind Oracle and SAP, Phillips, 54, has quietly retooled the company's software, brought in new management, and, not surprisingly, done some big deals. Now he's ready to push Infor -- and himself -- back into the spotlight. Building on his previous incarnations as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and a mover and shaker on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, Phillips says he's finally molded himself into the kind of leader he always wanted to be.
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