Charles Phillips has much to be proud of. In the past few years he has managed to do something few professionals in the world have done – take a small company and transform it into one of the three major worldwide powerhouses in its industry. Better still, to compete on a level with a former employer. As Chief Executive Officer of In for, Phillips has done just that.
Amazingly enough, Phillips has managed to achieve this level of success while also being an active philanthropist and fostering a deep and abiding love of jazz. In fact, he is on the Board of Directors for Jazz at Lincoln Center and has conference rooms at his corporate headquarters named after a few jazz greats.
Life History
Charles E. Phillips, Jr. was an Air Force child. He was born in Little Rock Arkansas and spent much of his childhood moving around from as his father’s career advanced. From an early age, he was smitten with technology and computers. He enrolled in the United States Air force Academy where he earned his BS in Computer Science.
His failing eyesight, however, prevented him from achieving his goal of becoming a pilot. He instead accepted his commission in the Marines where he was stationed at Camp Lejeune working on their computer systems.
After achieving the rank of Captain, Phillips returned to college earning an MBA at Hampton University and later attending New York Law School for his JD.
He married his wife, Karen, after college and they have one child, a son, together.
He began working, in a civilian capacity, for BNY Mellon where he was Vice President of Software before transferring to Sound View Technology Group where he held the position of Senior Vice President. In 1994 he joined Morgan Stanley. His position with the organization was that of enterprise software industry analyst. He promoted to the position of Managing Director and remains in this role until 2003 when he joined Oracle as Co-President and Director.
In 2010 Charles Phillips left Oracle and was later announced as CEO for In for. Today, In for is the largest privately owned software company in the world. One year after taking over as CEO Phillips announced that the company would be relocating its headquarters from Georgia to New York City.
When he joined Infor, he wanted to do things differently. There are no doors in the corporate headquarters. He wants to focus on building relationships and working as a team rather than focusing on high demand and high pressure business antics. It’s working for him. The company has grown in the past few years. His decision to focus on smaller markets for product development and services has made Infor the third largest company of its type in the world. And it is steadily growing.
Phillips Charitable Organization
The Karen and Charles Phillips Charitable Organization was created to provide financial aid to single parents, veterans who are wounded, and engineering students who are disadvantaged. The PCO Board is made up of Young, Huh, Karen Phillips, Eric Garvin, and Charles. The organization has no overhead so that 100 percent of the funds go to help people who are in need.
One recipient of a grant from PCO was Kenisha Murray, a single mother of three who was working full time while attending school full time. You can imagine that this left little time or money for emergencies in her life. She received a grant to help her recover from some financial setbacks so that she could not only support her children, but also stay in school.
Solomon Jones is another beneficiary of the PCO largess. His 77 year old grandmother raised him and would love the opportunity to see her grandson earn his engineering degree. The PCO provided a scholarship for him to attend Howard University for computer science.
Thomas Elliot served his country working as an aircraft mechanic during the Vietnam conflict. He is recovering from surgery and complications related to an aortic abdominal aneurysm – the costs of which are beginning to overwhelm the entire family. PCO helped provide a grant to aid the family in meeting near term requirements and to create a manageable financial path forward.
Overall, the organization has provided more than 100 grants in the past two years and is looking forward to the opportunity to help more people who fall within the target groups the organization seeks to aid.
In addition to PCO, there are other causes that Charles Phillips gives his time, energy, and funds to support. He also serves on boards for several organizations, including Viacom Corporation, Apollo Theater, the United States Air Force Academy Endowment Fund, The Posse Foundation, Business Executives for National Security, the NYPD Foundation, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Santander Bank, and The New York City Public Library. All this while building a business empire worthy of respect and envy.
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