Genesys names new partner chiefs to expand AI push

Genesys has appointed Daniel Bailey as Senior Vice President, Global Strategic Partnerships, and Alexandre Oddos as Vice President, Global Ecosystem Activation, expanding its partner leadership team.

The move comes as Genesys places greater emphasis on its partner network around the Genesys Cloud platform, which is used by more than 7,000 organisations worldwide to manage customer and employee experiences.

Bailey takes on the global partnerships role after serving as Senior Vice President and Regional Sales Leader for Europe, Middle East and Africa. He will oversee the strategy and execution of Genesys' global strategic partnerships organisation.

Bailey remit

His remit includes closer work with alliance partners and the development of joint initiatives across the Genesys ecosystem. That network includes technology companies, global systems integrators, resellers, developers and industry-focused platform partners, including Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Capgemini, Cognizant, Deloitte, IBM, Meta, Salesforce and ServiceNow.

Before joining Genesys, Bailey held partnership and sales roles across Europe, Middle East and Africa at Amplitude, Salesforce and Zendesk. He brings more than 20 years of experience in cloud solutions sales across large organisations.

Oddos takes on a newly created role focused on global ecosystem activation. He will lead partner engagement, enablement and go-to-market execution, helping partners work with Genesys on customer deployments and sales efforts.

Oddos role

His responsibilities also include strategic ecosystem programmes across global systems integrators and technology partners, with the aim of extending market reach and supporting customer delivery through co-sell and co-delivery arrangements.

Before joining Genesys, Oddos was a Lead Analyst at Gartner, covering customer experience and customer service markets, including CRM and contact centre software. He also held leadership roles at Vocalcom, Microsoft and IBM.

The leadership changes reflect the growing importance of partners for software companies seeking to link artificial intelligence tools with customer service systems, workflow software and enterprise data. For Genesys, the ecosystem is a way to embed its software more deeply within larger organisations that rely on outside advisers, cloud platforms and systems integrators for implementation work.

AI channel push

Genesys said organisations moving towards more autonomous customer experiences need partners that can connect AI, workflows, data and real-time engagement across the business. It argued that coordinating platforms, processes and external expertise has become central to turning AI spending into broader operational impact.

Larry Shurtz, Chief Sales Officer at Genesys, linked the appointments to that broader commercial push.

"Customers are looking for trusted partners that can help them accelerate AI adoption and drive meaningful business impact," said Larry Shurtz, Chief Sales Officer, Genesys. "Daniel and Alexandre bring complementary strengths that will help Genesys deepen strategic relationships, accelerate joint go-to-market execution and create new opportunities for customers around the world. Their leadership will strengthen our ecosystem and help customers realise even greater value from their investment in Genesys Cloud AI."

Partner strategy

Bailey also outlined how he sees the role of partners as companies expand their use of AI across business systems.

"Genesys helps organisations turn AI innovation into business outcomes, and a strong ecosystem can help customers extend that impact across the enterprise," said Daniel Bailey, Senior Vice President, Global Strategic Partnerships, Genesys. "Our focus is on building partnerships that make it easier for organisations to connect AI with the systems, workflows and expertise that drive their business. Together with our partners, we're helping customers accelerate transformation, simplify execution and drive greater operational efficiency, customer loyalty and growth."

Genesys said it serves more than 8,000 organisations worldwide overall, and separately noted that more than 7,000 use the Genesys Cloud platform. The company has been positioning agentic AI as a central part of its software offering as it seeks to expand through both direct sales and partner-led routes to market.