Tony Bates

Tony Bates is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Genesys. He leads the company’s strategy, direction and operations in more than 100 countries and oversees a global team of more than 6,000 employees. Tony has decades of experience steering business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies through major market transitions and rapid scaling. A passionate technologist at heart, Tony began his career in network operations and internet infrastructure, teaching himself to code during his daily train commute. He swiftly gained the business acumen to advance into trusted executive roles at some of the world’s most respected global SaaS companies. Career highlights include leading Cisco’s Service Provider business, growing its Enterprise and Commercial division to more than $20 billion in annual revenue and serving as CEO of Skype, where he was responsible for expanding the business to over 170 million connected users. Once Skype was acquired by Microsoft, Tony became president where he was responsible for unified communications before serving as executive vice president of business development and developers. In addition to his role at Genesys, Tony serves on the board of directors at Okta and leads the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Task Force of the Sustainable Markets Initiative. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by London South Bank University in October 2024.