About Us

Coherent is a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company helping businesses control, transform and gain insight from their financial models housed in the world's most ubiquitous software, Excel.

Our Story

From a small, single-market startup to a market leading, global technology player, our company has grown significantly since it's inception. As a company, we have evolved over time, consistently striving to help our clients overcome their biggest challenges and seize new opportunities in often competitive and everchanging industries.

Our Leadership Team

John Brisco

CEO & Co-founder

John Brisco

CEO & Co-founder

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John is the leader and co-founder of Coherent. Every day, he works with teams, customers and partners across the world to help unleash business logic into APIs via Coherent’s world-class and unique software.

His movement into entrepreneurship arose from a successful executive career within some of the world’s largest Financial services companies, where he became fascinated around how much business logic was being created in Microsoft Excel to support product planning, processes and financial reporting/planning to enable such businesses to operate. However, the ‘a-ha’ moment he experienced was the challenge, timeline and high cost challenges that were faced within business around translating this logic into the systems that enterprises use on a daily basis.

John and his team created Coherent Spark, the world’s leading logic-as-a-service platform that enables a business or user to turn spreadsheets into enterprise-grade APIs and code instantly. In short, he is proud to have created a software ‘purple cow’ something truly remarkable that creates instant value for anyone, anywhere using the Coherent platform.

Peter Roschke

Chief Technology Officer

Peter Roschke

Chief Technology Officer

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Peter is the Chief Technology Officer at Coherent. He designed and wrote the first iteration of Spark to shift how companies leverage intellectual capital, improve enterprise agility, and effectively bridge the gap between business and IT teams. Peter continues to lead the Spark vision and technical strategy and is passionate about harnessing the benefits of technological advancements such as AI, scalable computing, and secure data architectures.

Richard Barbarino

Chief Commercial Officer

Richard Barbarino

Chief Commercial Officer

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Rich is the Chief Commercial Officer at Coherent, responsible for driving ARR, innovation, scale, and global expansion. He is a mission-driven, multifaceted, inventive, and results driven executive with more than 20 years of progressive experience designing, developing, and implementing applications in ever-evolving complex technology environments.

Kate Fletcher

Chief People Officer

Kate Fletcher

Chief People Officer

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Kate is the Chief People Officer at Coherent overseeing the firm’s business operations – including HR, Finance, Legal, PMO and Procurement. Kate has a passion for strategic planning, operational effectiveness and implementing governance to monitor achievement of strategic plans and operational performance.

Robert Showers

Global Chief Revenue Officer, Banking & Capital Markets

Robert Showers

Global Chief Revenue Officer, Banking & Capital Markets

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Robert is the Revenue Leader at Coherent for Banking and Capital Markets. Before joining us, Robert led sales and relationship management for Alternative Asset Managers in the Americas at BNP Paribas Securities Services where he drove business strategy and product sales across the full suite of BNPs infrastructure solutions platform. He also spent time at SS&C, a $15 billion technology and services company focused on the Pension Fund and Asset Management sectors. Prior to this, he was Chief Operating Officer for Peak Ridge Capital Group, a Private Equity, where he led the launch of a new Broker Dealer platform. He also spent several years in key roles at UBS and at Barclays capital.

Doug Loots

Global Chief Revenue Officer, Insurance

Doug Loots

Global Chief Revenue Officer, Insurance

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Doug leads the insurance business globally for Coherent. He has been a technology leader for the past 25+ years, and insurance technology for the past 20 (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Marsh & McLennan, Capgemini, and Global Atlantic). He thrives on helping clients deliver strategic value efficiently and effectively to make a significant impact to each client’s bottom line. In June 2021, after seeing how Coherent Spark would have transformed the businesses in his prior roles, Doug joined Coherent. He is now evangelizing Spark's capabilities across the insurance industry and thrives on seeing his clients succeed in using Spark to accelerate their business initiatives.

Jonathan Ashby

Revenue Leader, Life & Annuities

Jonathan Ashby

Revenue Leader, Life & Annuities

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Jonathan is the Head of Revenue for Life & Annuities at Coherent, responsible for leading the Life US sales team, drive ARR, and account expansion. He is a passionate leader, family man, all about the team, positive culture oriented, and results driven executive with more than 16 years of experience. He brings together insights from insurance clients, sales, customer success, and product development. Prior to Coherent, Jonathan managed the Tier 1 Insurance team for the Americas at FIS. His team was responsible for a 45M annual quota. Additionally, his team sold actuarial software (Prophet), cloud, data management, and a host of Insurance products to US insurers.

The driving force throughout his career has been rooted in mentorship, serving others, and building a legacy of leaving people and environments better than he found them. His career mantra is “it’s bigger than me,” which means living each day with purpose, helping and serving others, and making life not about himself.