Tessell names McDonough & Carter to executive team

Tessell has appointed Matt McDonough as President, Go-to-Market, and Jeff Carter as Chief Strategy Officer, adding senior commercial and database leadership to its executive team.

The hires come as organisations face growing pressure to modernise database systems spread across on-premises infrastructure and multiple cloud providers. Tessell sells a database-as-a-service platform designed to let customers manage different database engines and cloud environments through a single control plane.

McDonough joins after nearly nine years at Couchbase, where he was part of the early executive team. He helped scale the company to about USD $275 million in annual recurring revenue and worked across partner development, strategy, corporate development and product transition during its expansion, IPO and sale.

As President, Go-to-Market, he will oversee global go-to-market operations, including expanding Tessell's reach among enterprise customers, building partner relationships and developing its commercial structure.

Carter brings four decades of experience in enterprise data systems. Most recently, he served as a Vice President at AWS, where he led the company's portfolio of relational and non-relational databases, as well as migration services, covering systems used for large-scale production workloads.

Before AWS, Carter spent nearly 30 years at Teradata in senior engineering and platform roles. At Tessell, he will lead long-term platform strategy and work with customers managing database estates made more complex by years of expansion, migration and regulatory demands.

Tessell is targeting a market that has become more urgent for large businesses and public sector organisations. Database modernisation, it argues, is no longer a long-term infrastructure project as companies respond to artificial intelligence initiatives, data centre consolidation, tighter security requirements, changing software licensing terms and pressure to control cloud spending.

The company focuses on large organisations in regulated and data-intensive sectors including financial services, transport, healthcare, media, retail and government. Its platform is designed to help customers migrate, protect, manage and optimise mission-critical databases without disrupting existing operations.

Bala Kuchibhotla, Chief Executive Officer of Tessell, linked the appointments to that shift in customer demand.

"The market has reached an inflection point," said Bala Kuchibhotla, Chief Executive Officer, Tessell. "Enterprises know they need to modernize their database estates to take advantage of the cost and flexibility delivered by the cloud and the business transformation from AI. The question is how to execute with speed without breaking what is already working. Matt knows how to build the GTM motion that takes a platform to enterprise scale. Jeff knows database infrastructure from the inside out - he has seen it at a scale very few people have witnessed. Together they give Tessell exactly what this moment requires."

Commercial focus

McDonough's appointment signals an effort to strengthen sales execution as Tessell seeks broader adoption among large enterprises. His background at Couchbase spanned revenue growth and alliances, both important for infrastructure software companies that sell through direct sales teams and channel partners.

He described Tessell as well positioned in a market where customer demand is becoming more immediate.

"I have spent my career building key company capabilities that help data and infrastructure companies scale to best serve their customers and partners in meeting their own business objectives" said McDonough. "Tessell is the rare combination of a genuinely differentiated platform, proven customer outcomes, and a market that has reached the point where the urgency is real. The opportunity here is significant and the timing is right."

Platform strategy

Carter's arrival gives Tessell a senior executive with deep experience in the database services market at one of the world's largest cloud providers. His background at AWS and Teradata may help shape how the company develops its platform for customers running mixed environments across legacy systems and public clouds.

He described the challenge as reducing accumulated complexity while preserving the systems companies still depend on.

"Tessell is solving one of the most consequential challenges in enterprise technology," said Carter. "Enterprises are sitting on decades of accumulated database complexity and they need a path forward that does not require them to break what is already working, and provides flexibility for multi-cloud implementations. That is exactly what Tessell delivers."

Tessell's customers include large companies, banks and government agencies such as CSX, Moody's, Citizens Bank and Forbes. According to the company, those users have reported reductions of 25 to 50 per cent in total database cost of ownership.

Tessell has also been recognised by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in Data Management and by Peer Insights as a Strong Performer in Cloud Database Management Systems for 2025 and 2026.