Skype Hires New Tony Bates as New CEO

Skype has hired Tony Bates, a top official at Cisco, as its new chief executive, according to the New York Times.

Tony Bates, who heads the networking giant's enterprise, commercial and small-business unit — a division with $20 billion in annual revenues and about 12,500 employees — will assume the top job at Skype as its new owners continue to put their own stamp on the fast-growing company after carving it out of eBay one year ago.

Joshua Silverman, a former eBay executive who has run Skype since early 2008, will step aside to make room for Mr. Bates, who joins the company at the end of this month. In 2005, eBay paid $2.6 billion for the startup phone service but never integrated the company into its online auction business.

The new appointment comes after the company filed for an initial public offering in August.