Faces in the Crowd: Tony Bates

With experience at GoPro, Skype and Microsoft, as well as successfully leading Cisco’s Service Provider business, Tony Bates was an obvious choice to take on the role of CEO of customer experience company, Genesys. Bates joined the company in May, taking over from Paul Segre, who was CEO for 12 years and is now chairman of the company.

Bates’ focus is on continuing to grow Genesys’ cloud business through its PureCloud offering. At the time of his appointment, he said in a statement: “With its next-generation cloud business growing 85% year over year and rapid injection of AI throughout its customer experience platform, Paul and Tom have done an incredible job building Genesys into a market leader with a remarkable customer base. The immense opportunity ahead of us is clear, and I intend to ensure that we capitalize on it.” PureCloud use has been growing, with Latin America and North America both having seen double-digit increases in 2018. Bates also continues to serve on the board of directors at both eBay and VMware.