His intelligence operates on a higher plane, but his true gift is the ability to distill his complex theories into easily digestible terms.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Mr. Hurd became known for his flip chart and his ability to distill each business decision to a set of metrics that could determine how profitable a move would be, said former colleagues.

WSJ: At Oracle, Hurd in Rare Situation

In the pages of this publication and elsewhere, many have posited that recalcitrant IT departments, hidebound by a history of rigid organization, have been a bottleneck to the adoption of new technologies and, by extension, the ability to distill business value from data.

FORBES: Will Data Science Become the New Bottleneck?