Dr John Bates

Dr John Bates is CEO of Eggplant, a leader in AI-powered Digital Automation Intelligence and Customer Experience Optimisation. Eggplant is majority owned by the Carlyle Group.

Prior to Eggplant John served as CEO of Plat.One - leader in IoT Application Enablement Platforms. In September 2016 SAP announced it had acquired Plat.One to form the core of its IoT offering.

Previously John served in a variety of C-level roles in public software companies. At Software AG, he was a Member of the Executive Board, and served in CMO and CTO roles. He established & ran SAG's Big Data Analytics and IoT business.

John also held roles at Progress Software, including EVP & CTO, responsible for creating, evolving & evangelizing Progress'​ market strategy & technology vision. As GM of Progress'​ Apama Division & Decision Analytics business, he was responsible for Divisional P&L, including sales, marketing, products & consulting services.

John was Co-Founder, President & CTO of Apama, the pioneering streaming analytics vendor. John led Apama's technology & go-to-market strategy. He was also co-inventor of the patented technology. John was responsible for raising $19m of venture capital & sat on the main board. He was instrumental in the sale of Apama to Progress in 2005, yielding a strong return for shareholders.

Prior to 2000, John was a tenured academic at Cambridge University in the UK where he led research into distributed computing systems.