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.

A chartered psychologist, Fidelma is the Chief People Officer at Couchbase. She is responsible for leading the People function, aligned with the company’s values and operating objectives. In this role, she leads all aspects of the People organization, including Business Partnering, Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, Workplace, Employee Experience & Engagement and HR Operations. She was most recently Vice President of the talent and organizational development team at Zendesk where she led its global organization development, engagement, and learning teams. Fidelma began her career with Accenture’s talent management consulting practice, specializing in large-scale technology and business model transformations, and later led the People function for fintech company Realex Payments. Fidelma holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin and a master’s degree in Occupational Psychology from Cardiff University.

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.

As Chief Information Officer, Julie leads both the IT and Security teams, driving the alignment of technology initiatives with the company’s strategic objectives. Julie was previously Vice President of Business Applications and IT at New Relic where she centralized and scaled the business applications function. She also spearheaded the execution of complex transformation projects, including facilitating the transition from SaaS to consumption-based models. Prior to that, Julie held technology leadership positions at Harvard Business Publishing (HBR Magazine) and start-up RichRelevance. Julie holds a B.S. in Commerce from the University of Virginia.

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.

Leveraging his deep product and solutions experience, Matt is responsible for Couchbase’s product and global partner strategies and corporate development in his role as SVP of Product and Partners. He drives Couchbase’s product roadmap, competitive strategy, and corporate strategy as well as the company’s worldwide partner execution including channels, technology partners, solution partners, systems integrators, and cloud service providers. Matt previously also led Couchbase’s Business Development team. Prior to Couchbase, Matt was at EMC where he built out and led one of the flash storage offerings running product management, marketing, and solutions and had also previously led the company’s Emerging Technologies Division product and portfolio strategy. Before that, Matt was at Symantec/Veritas for seven years where he held positions across business development, alliances, strategy, marketing, and product management for both the security and information management businesses. Matt’s technology career is preceded by his service as a United States Army Officer. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the United States Military Academy.

As Chief Revenue Officer, Huw is responsible for driving strong growth, strategic global account planning, and sales operations. He previously served as a sales leader for Couchbase’s international business where he increased international ARR by nearly 200%. Huw has more than 20 years of experience across a range of operations, sales development, and go-to-market leadership positions in large multi-national companies such as Veritas, Symantec, and Lenovo, and hyper-growth start-ups such as Good Technology and Tanium. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business studies from the Leicester Business School, De Montfort University.

Amy Tu manages all global legal, compliance, and governance operations at Couchbase. Since joining in 2020, she has been instrumental in the company’s growth, steering it through product expansions, key partnerships, and strategic risk management. Before Couchbase, Amy was Legal Counsel at Medallia and practiced at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, advising on complex corporate matters. Known for her collaborative approach, Amy leverages over a decade of experience to build ethical and scalable legal frameworks that foster innovation.