BJ Schaknowski

Chief Executive Officer · Couchbase

Database SoftwareSan Jose, CA

Chief Executive Officer of Couchbase, the database company taken private by Haveli Investments in a roughly $1.5 billion deal in September 2025. He was appointed five days after the deal closed, succeeding Matt Cain, and has since rebuilt the executive team. He was previously CEO of the healthcare operations software company symplr and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Vertafore, and he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Last reviewed: Sep 25, 2026

BJ Schaknowski

Chief Executive Officer Couchbase

Last Reviewed: September 25, 2026

Executive Summary

BJ Schaknowski is Chief Executive Officer of Couchbase, the operational database company behind the Capella cloud platform. He took over on 29 September 2025, five days after Haveli Investments completed its roughly $1.5 billion take-private of the company, and succeeded Matt Cain, who stepped down as Chair, President and CEO. Since then Couchbase has brought in an almost entirely new executive team within about six months, and now presents its database as the memory and data layer for enterprise AI agents. He arrived after running symplr, a healthcare operations software company, and before that led sales and marketing at insurance-software company Vertafore. He is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Career Highlights

  • Appointed Chief Executive Officer of Couchbase in September 2025, immediately after its take-private by Haveli Investments.
  • Built a new executive team at Couchbase, including a President and Chief Commercial Officer, a Chief Product and Strategy Officer and, in May 2026, a new Chief Financial Officer.
  • Chief Executive Officer of symplr, where Couchbase says he launched the first non-clinical integrated operations platform for U.S. healthcare and more than tripled the business.
  • As symplr CEO, acquired the Midas Suite of Solutions from Conduent in 2022.
  • Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Vertafore.
  • Senior leadership roles at LexisNexis Software Solutions, CA Technologies, Intuit and Sage Software.
  • Served in the United States Marine Corps.

Professional Journey

Couchbase puts Schaknowski’s software industry experience at more than 20 years, and notes that he also served in the United States Marine Corps. Earlier in his career he held global senior leadership positions at several established software vendors: Sage Software, Intuit, CA Technologies and LexisNexis Software Solutions. He then became Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Vertafore, which Couchbase describes as the world’s leading provider of insurance technology.

He then became chief executive of symplr, a healthcare operations software company. As CEO he expanded the business through acquisition. In January 2022 Conduent announced that it had sold its Midas Suite of Solutions, covering healthcare quality, safety and compliance, to symplr. Schaknowski said the addition would help customers “achieve truly connected, integrated, enterprise-wide operational efficiencies in ways that no single point solution can achieve.” Couchbase credits him with launching the first non-clinical integrated operations platform for U.S. healthcare at symplr and with more than tripling the size of the business.

In June 2025 Couchbase agreed to be acquired by affiliates of the Austin private-equity firm Haveli Investments, and the merger closed on 24 September 2025, leaving Couchbase a wholly owned subsidiary of the buyer. Five days later the company named Schaknowski CEO and Amir Jafari CFO. Haveli’s Sumit Pande said the firm was committed to “continued investment in the product and technology” so that Couchbase would be the data platform of choice for AI applications.

Schaknowski then rebuilt the leadership team. Barry Morris joined as Chief Product and Strategy Officer and Deirdre Toner, from AWS, as President and Chief Commercial Officer. In February 2026 he added a Chief Business and Transformation Officer, Joe Remington, who joined from symplr, along with a Chief Information Security Officer and a head of customer success. In May 2026 Couchbase named Kari Wimmer Chief Financial Officer and Tim Finley Senior Vice President of AI, and described the result as “an all-new executive team” that had arrived within six months. The product message moved in the same direction: Couchbase now calls itself “the operational data platform for AI”, and in June 2026 it launched an AI Data Plane that provides memory, context retrieval and data access for enterprise AI agents.

Education

No education record was found. Couchbase’s appointment release gives none, and no other first-party biography could be read.