Cohere president Martin Kon stepping down, remains “key member” of the team

Martin Kon, president of Toronto-based Cohere, is stepping down to assume a new advisory role, the company said.

Kon, who was also Cohere’s chief operating officer, will retain his spot on the enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) company’s board of directors.

“Martin continues to be a key member of the Cohere team,” the company said in a statement to BetaKit. Cohere did not say whether a replacement had been appointed for Kon.

In a LinkedIn post , Kon said he was making the move to spend more time with his family, noting that “working almost non-stop” throughout his career had affected personal relationships.

“Our daughters are 11 and 9, and I’ve never had the chance to ‘turn off’ and be truly present with them,”

Kon said.

The executive said he remained “immensely proud” of Cohere’s work and that staying with the company while improving family time was a “dream come true.”

The Logic first reported the leadership change, which comes weeks after Cohere raised $500 million USD at a $6.8-billion USD valuation and shook up its C-suite. It appointed Canadian computer scientist Joelle Pineau, formerly of Meta, as its first chief AI officer. Ex-Uber executive Francois Chadwick joined as the company’s first CFO. Phil Blunsom was also promoted from chief scientist to CTO, following the departure of CTO Saurabh Baji. Days before, Cohere Labs head Sara Hooker announced she would leave the company’s non-profit research arm in September.