Couchbase’s Leadership

BJ Schaknowski is a software industry executive, with over 25 years of experience in leadership roles across a wide variety of operating functions. BJ spent the last five years as the CEO of symplr, more than tripling the size of the business during his tenure and launching the first non-clinical integrated Operations Platform to the US healthcare category.  Before symplr, BJ served as the Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Vertafore, the world’s leading provider of insurance technology. He held numerous senior and global leadership roles earlier in his career at LexisNexis Software Solutions, CA Technologies, Intuit, and Sage Software. BJ brings his dedication to creating balanced value and outcomes for employees, customers, and shareholders to the Couchbase community. Deeply committed to philanthropic efforts, BJ serves on the Susan G. Komen Board of Directors and is deeply involved in US Veteran’s transition and support organizations.  BJ earned a BA in Communications from the State University of New York at Geneseo and his MBA at the University of Georgia – Terry College of Business. Schaknowski also served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves for 8 years. He lives in Denver with his wife, Heather, and two children.

Veronica Curran brings more than 20 years of experience building and scaling people and culture functions for global technology companies. She joins Couchbase as Chief People Officer, where she will lead the company’s talent strategy and organizational health, aligning people programs with business priorities to enable sustainable growth and high performance.

Veronica joins Couchbase from Magnolia People Solutions where she was the founder and managing partner, working with high-growth tech companies to design talent strategies, strengthen leadership teams, and foster scalable organizational health. Prior to Magnolia, she held several senior leadership roles at SmartBear, Alumni Ventures, Flywire, Mendix, and Turbonomic.

Originally from Galway, Ireland, Veronica now lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her husband, Douglas, and spends much of her free time with her children, golfing, hiking, and enjoying the outdoors.

As Senior Vice President of Engineering, Gopi is responsible for all product development and delivery at Couchbase. He came to Couchbase from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he served as General Manager of Analytics and Observability. During his tenure at AWS, he oversaw the development of numerous cloud-native databases, notably AWS Redshift and Aurora, and was a founding member of the AWS Glue service and CloudWatch Observability initiatives. Previously, Gopi held senior technical leadership positions at IBM and Informix, leading their flagship database offerings. Gopi holds a master’s degree in Data Science and Machine Learning from UC Berkeley, and bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Coimbatore Institute of Technology, India.

As SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at Couchbase, Josh leads all aspects of marketing and sales development, driving brand momentum, market leadership, demand creation, and growth. With over 20 years of marketing leadership experience, Josh has a proven track record of driving growth and achieving strategic outcomes in both private and public companies. Prior to joining Couchbase, he served as CMO at Delphix, where he helped lead and guide the company to high growth and profitability, culminating in a successful acquisition. Previously, he held senior marketing roles at Tanium, Qumulo, and Apptio, where he played a pivotal role in Apptio’s journey from early stage to IPO and a $2B acquisition. Josh’s deep technical background and expertise in enterprise software have been instrumental in developing effective marketing strategies. He holds a degree in mathematics from Bellarmine College and is passionate about leveraging technology to drive business success.

Amir Jafari is an experienced finance and operations executive with a proven track record of scaling technology companies through public and private growth stages. Most recently, he served as CFO & COO of Blend Labs, a publicly traded SaaS company, where he led finance, operations including GTM, and corporate functions. Previously, Amir held senior executive roles at two private technology companies and a senior finance and product role at ServiceNow, where he built and led a new Finance & Legal business unit. He brings deep expertise in financial transformation, operational excellence, and aligning strategy with execution.

Barry Morris is Couchbase’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer. He is a veteran of the data management business, most recently in executive roles at both Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, where he had responsibility for Google’s database portfolio and most of AWS’s non-relational database services respectively. Prior to AWS, Morris was the CEO of Undo.io, CEO/Chair of NuoDB, CEO of StreamBase, and CEO of IONA Technologies. He also held management positions at Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), Lotus Development, and Leading Technologies.

Morris was raised in South Africa and educated in Great Britain. He has a degree in engineering from New College in Oxford University and an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from the IMC Association. In addition to multiple board roles in technology companies, he has chaired the board of the International School of Boston, and served on the board of the Sugan Theater Company.

Deirdre Toner is a proven growth and transformation executive with deep expertise in emerging data domains. For more than 25 years, she has accelerated go-to-market performance and built enduring customer partnerships that delivered breakthrough results.

Most recently, Deirdre spent seven years at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where she held multiple strategic leadership roles, including heading the Global Data Go-to-Market and Sales organization. Prior to AWS, she held senior executive roles at notable technology companies including SAP, DataStax, and Business Objects, where she led teams through periods of rapid growth and market expansion.

Deirdre is a dedicated community advocate and champion for women in technology. She serves on the Board of Trustees for Sierra Community House in Lake Tahoe and is a frequent speaker at industry and internal events, inspiring the next generation of female tech leaders.

Maggie Warren is Chief Legal Officer at Couchbase, where she leads the company’s global legal, compliance, and data governance functions. She is a seasoned executive with deep experience in guiding high-growth, technology-driven organizations through complex regulatory environments and transformational change.

Prior to Couchbase, Maggie served as Chief Administrative Officer at Enhance Health, overseeing legal, compliance and people operations for a leading healthcare insurance agency. She previously spent several years as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Vertafore, where she helped steer the company through its evolution from private equity ownership to the public sector, while modernizing the legal function and establishing enterprise-wide privacy, data governance, compliance and cybersecurity programs.

Earlier in her career, Maggie was Associate General Counsel at Clarivate Analytics supporting its successful separation from Thomson Reuters and transition to a standalone, private-equity-backed company.

Maggie holds a juris doctor, cum laude, from Western Michigan University and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Colorado. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado and Michigan.