Eric Kalin is a global business leader and technology executive whose career has been shaped by growth, change, and a willingness to keep learning.
Over the next 25 years, Eric built a career across some of the world’s largest technology and consulting companies. His experience includes leadership roles at IBM, Accenture, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. Along the way, he worked across sales, operations, cloud technology, data, consulting, and business transformation.
In 2025, Eric joined Oracle as a Senior Vice President. Today, his work focuses on data platforms and industry strategy. He helps organizations think through complex questions involving data, AI, cloud environments, security, and infrastructure. His approach starts with understanding what a business actually needs before deciding how technology should support it.
Throughout his career, Eric has focused on bringing people together. He believes strong teams need clear goals, useful processes, open communication, and leaders who give people room to contribute.
Away from work, Eric enjoys classic cars, fishing, golf, soccer, water activities, and time outdoors. He also supports charitable causes, including the American Cancer Society, the MS Society, and organizations serving children with disabilities.
After decades in business, Eric still values discipline, empathy, curiosity, and integrity as much as any professional achievement.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
My days usually start early. I like having some quiet time before meetings begin. I review what needs my attention, look at the decisions that have to be made, and identify the few things that can actually move the business forward.
As an executive, it is easy to spend an entire day in meetings and mistake activity for progress. I try not to do that. I protect time for customers, my team, and thinking. I also spend a lot of time connecting groups that might otherwise operate separately. Much of leadership is making sure the right people are talking to each other.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I start with the business problem. Technology executives sometimes begin with a product and then look for somewhere to use it. I prefer the opposite approach.
Once the problem is clear, I bring together people with different perspectives. Sales may see something engineering does not. A customer may describe a problem differently than an internal team. The idea becomes stronger as those perspectives come together. Then we establish ownership, a process, and measurable outcomes.
What’s one trend that excites you?
Agentic AI interests me because we are moving beyond systems that simply provide information. We are beginning to see technology that can take action across workflows.
The important question is not whether a company can use AI. Most companies can. The better question is where it creates measurable value. That requires good data, security, infrastructure, governance, and a clear business purpose.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
I write down my three most important outcomes for the day. Not tasks, outcomes. There is a difference.
A task might be attending a customer meeting. The outcome might be reaching agreement on the next step. Thinking this way keeps me focused on why I am doing something rather than simply checking boxes.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Listen longer before answering.
Early in your career, you sometimes think being valuable means having the answer quickly. Experience teaches you that asking the right question can be more valuable. I would tell my younger self to be curious, listen carefully, and not confuse confidence with certainty.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you on?
I think some organizations need fewer meetings about collaboration and more actual collaboration.
If five departments need three recurring meetings to coordinate one initiative, the problem may be the process. Put the right people together, define who owns the decision, establish the outcome, and let them work.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Talk to people outside your immediate area of expertise.
My career has crossed sales, operations, consulting, cloud, data, AI, and business transformation. Some of my most useful insights have come from people who approach a problem completely differently than I do.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I get away from the screen. Fishing is particularly good for that. You cannot force the water to cooperate with your schedule.
Even a short period outdoors helps me reset. When I come back, I write down what is actually urgent. Usually, the list is much shorter than it felt in my head.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Learn how different parts of a business connect.
I have worked at IBM, Accenture, AWS, Microsoft, and now Oracle. The roles and technologies changed, but one principle remained useful: understand what matters beyond your own function.
If you understand the customer, sales organization, technical teams, operations, and financial goals, you can help solve larger problems. That also makes it easier to bring cross-functional teams together around a shared objective.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
Earlier in my career, I supported an initiative where we moved too quickly toward a solution. We had smart people involved and a strong plan, but we had not spent enough time making sure every stakeholder defined the problem the same way.
We had to slow down and reset expectations. It taught me that alignment at the beginning feels slower but usually saves time later. Today, I spend more time asking what success means before discussing how we will achieve it.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Create an independent “translation layer” for companies adopting AI.
Many organizations have technical experts and business experts, but not enough people who can translate between them. A specialized firm could help leadership teams turn business problems into AI use cases, then evaluate whether the data, security, infrastructure, and economics actually support them. The value would be in preventing expensive solutions to poorly defined problems.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Microsoft OneNote has remained useful for me because it is simple. I use it to organize meeting notes, customer observations, questions, and ideas.
I especially like keeping notes from different conversations and looking for recurring themes. If three customers independently raise a similar issue, that is worth paying attention to.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
One book I have returned to over the years is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I appreciate its focus on perspective and personal responsibility, especially when circumstances are outside your control. In a long career, there will always be setbacks, unexpected changes, and situations you cannot fix immediately. You can still control how you respond. That is something I have found useful professionally and personally.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
I recently enjoyed Ted Lasso. On the surface, it is a show about soccer, which is something I already enjoy, but the relationships are what made it interesting to me. Ted pays attention to people who might otherwise be overlooked. He also understands that different personalities need different kinds of support. I think that’s very true. Whether you are coaching a soccer team or leading people at work, you cannot assume that everyone is motivated, challenged, or encouraged in exactly the same way.
Key learnings
- Start with the business problem before choosing the technology. A clear definition of success can prevent expensive solutions to the wrong problem.
- Focus daily planning on outcomes rather than activities. Completing a task matters less than understanding what it should accomplish.
- Learn how different parts of an organization connect. Cross-functional knowledge makes it easier to solve problems that one department can’t handle alone.
- Spend time with people outside your area of expertise. Different perspectives often reveal assumptions that would otherwise go unchallenged.
- When work becomes overwhelming, reduce the problem to what is genuinely urgent and create space to think before reacting.