Home Online Advertising BlueKai Founder Omar Tawakol Parts Ways With Oracle, Datalogix’s Eric Roza Steps Up

BlueKai Founder Omar Tawakol Parts Ways With Oracle, Datalogix’s Eric Roza Steps Up

SHARE:

omar-leaves-oracleBlueKai co-founder and CEO Omar Tawakol will leave his post as general manager and SVP of Oracle Data Cloud on Friday, two and a half years after Oracle acquired his company.

Eric Roza, the former CEO of Datalogix and current co-SVP of Oracle Data Cloud, will step up to lead the group, according to Tawakol.

“I leave the ODC in great hands (four seasoned CEOs are in the ODC team led by Eric Roza the ex-CEO of Datalogix),” Tawakol wrote in a Facebook post.

Oracle would not immediately confirm the appointment to AdExchanger.

Sources tell AdExchanger Roza is the natural successor to lead Oracle Data Cloud.

Datalogix, because of its offline data, comprises the bulk of the power behind Oracle’s data-as-a-service offering. BlueKai’s data exchange and its data management platform were split, and the latter became part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud.

The relative importance of each company is also reflected in the purchase price. Oracle bought BlueKai for between $350 million and $400 million and purchased Datalogix for $1.2 billion.

Tawakol follows Kevin Akeroyd as the second major executive to leave his position heading up one of Oracle’s marketing product family.

Akeroyd served as SVP and GM of Oracle Marketing Cloud until August, when he left to become CEO of Cision. Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud were closely entwined, as the former housed the BlueKai data management platform (since renamed Oracle DMP).

Tawakol’s next post doesn’t seem to be in advertising. He will join the startup WorkFit on Monday, he said in a Facebook post. The company builds AI assistants for enterprise customers.

While both Datalogix and BlueKai served the ad tech and mar tech communities, Oracle has more expansive visions for Data Cloud, pushing its capabilities to other lines of business, like CRM and ERP.

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

Similarly, Akeroyd’s successor at Oracle Marketing Cloud, Laura Ipsen, indicated that the marketing stack would be used, in part, for Oracle to gain inroads in selling nonmarketing technologies.

Update: This story has been changed to remove references to the perception of BlueKai’s technology in the marketplace. We’ll address those issues in a Friday followup story, and will post the link here when that piece goes live. 

Must Read

The Big Story: Live From CES 2026

Agents, streamers and robots, oh my! Live from the C-Space campus at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas, our team breaks down the most interesting ad tech trends we saw at CES this year.

Monopoly Man looks on at the DOJ vs. Google ad tech antitrust trial (comic).

2025: The Year Google Lost In Court And Won Anyway

From afar, it looks like Google had a rough year in antitrust court. But zoom in a bit and it becomes clear that the past year went about as well as Google could have hoped for.

Why 2025 Marked The End Of The Data Clean Room Era

A few years ago, “data clean rooms” were all the ad tech trades could talk about. Fast-forward to 2026, and maybe advertisers don’t need to know what a data clean room is after all.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

The AI Search Reckoning Is Dismantling Open Web Traffic – And Publishers May Never Recover

Publishers have been losing 20%, 30% and in some cases even as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue over the past year due to the rise of zero-click AI search.

No Waiting for May – CES Is Where The TV Upfront Season Starts 

If any single event can be considered the jumping-off point for TV upfronts, it’s the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), which kicks off this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Comic: This Is Our Year

Comic: This Is Our Year

It’s been 15 years since this comic first ran in January 2011, and there’s something both quaint and timeless about it. Here’s to more (and more) transparency in 2026, and happy New Year!