People

We’ve spent our careers at the heart of the systems that define the modern world—from the engineering floors of Google to the high-stakes world of global finance at Merril Lynch and as pioneers of the global coaching movement. We’ve seen what it takes to scale to billions, and we’ve seen what is lost when growth is the only metric. Spryng is our "Third Way." We are a team of specialists, scientists, and human-development pioneers charting a path that is as profitable as it is equitable.

Johan Premfors

CEO & Co-Founder | Navigating Chaos to Build Clarity | Johan’s career is a masterclass in versatility. From the high-stakes world of Merrill Lynch to operating businesses in procurement and telecoms across landscapes like Afghanistan, he has spent decades thriving in uncertainty. The former CEO of the Co-Active Training Institute in San Francisco, he now serves as Director of The Coaches Training Institute in Dubai, the most prominent leadership school in the Middle East. Johan continues to train coaches and maintains a deep passion for the profession, keeping a small number of active clients including dedicated pro-bono work.

Personal Driver: Radically transforming the world of personal growth into something more authentic and accessible.

Donald Tanguay, PhD

CTO & Co-Founder | Engineering for Human Impact | Donald spent 15 years at the epicenter of Google, leading the engineering teams for Google Image Search and scaling products from zero to $2B in ARR. Having built some of the most used technology on the planet, he joined Spryng to apply that world-class technical discipline to a different set of problems. Donald holds a degree in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD from the Stanford University Robotics and AI Lab. He is dedicated to engineering a platform where high-performance technology coexists with human-centric values.

Personal Driver: Building a technology platform that make the world a better place for his children.

Gönan Premfors

Co-Founder | The Relationship & Parenting Expert | Gönan is a natural pioneer and the "mother of professional coaching" in the Middle East and Africa, having founded the region's first accredited school, The Coaches Training Institute in Dubai. As Spryng’s relationship and parenting expert, she brings the wisdom of Parentology—her philosophy taught in 32 countries—to our core mission. A sought-after advisor to governments and corporations, Gönan designs the philosophical frameworks that ensure Spryng remains a training ground for a more conscious, equitable, and human-centric way of doing business.

Personal Driver: Empowering people to find themselves and ultimately making sure children are seen, heard, and loved unconditionally.

Brent Kievit-Kylar, PhD

All Things Data Science | The Ethicist in the Machine | Brent works at the fault line between complex data and human cognition. More than a decade ago, he authored cognitive science research that anticipated what would later be called multimodal large language models—then left academia to build real systems at scale. He led metrics analysis for Google Image Search, helped construct one of the world’s largest metagenomic DNA databases, and has spent his career translating abstract intelligence into operational reality. At Spryng, Brent brings an unusually hard-nosed ethical lens to data science: not ethics as branding, but as system design. He builds transparent, powerful foundations that treat truth as a constraint, not a liability—and insists that data ultimately serve individuals, even when the answers are uncomfortable.

Personal Driver: Making sure that all sides of the story get explored and considered.

Revised: A Note to Investors

The Spryng Partnership We are not building a company for a quick flip; we are building an enduring institution for an equitable future. Our team has scaled products for billions, managed global capital, and transformed the human capital of hundreds of organizations. We know how to build for scale, and we know how to build for profit.

We are seeking patient capital and mission-aligned partners who recognize that the greatest returns come from solving the world’s most significant problems. We value:

Sustainable Alpha over Burn: We prioritize profitable, resilient growth that outlasts market cycles and protects investor capital through the long game.
Massive Impact over Hype: We deliver high-utility, real-world solutions for human development—a multi-billion dollar market ripe for world-class technical disruption.
Compounded Value over Quick Liquidity: We are committed to building a company of lasting significance. We believe that by creating a platform that is indispensable to human potential, we maximize the ultimate exit value for our partners.

If you believe that world-class technology should serve human potential while delivering outsized market performance, we invite you to join us. We promise it will be a heck of a journey.

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