I’d like to share my journey of building Ren.

I didn’t start out as a business person. I trained as a lawyer, then left to become a monk, spending years in meditation, yoga, and somatic psychotherapy—trying to understand what it means to be real with yourself and others.

With a family to support, I found an unexpected sweet spot: coaching people at work. It was a way to help people grow inside real relationships and everyday pressures. As a first-time CEO at a legacy coaching company, I became obsessed with one truth: leadership development is broken. Coaching is too expensive and reserved for the few. Management training becomes checkbox exercises. People tech slides back into performance management.

Even when leaders know people-first is right, companies retreat when it matters most. Workshops inspire, but within weeks, people fall back into old patterns. We burn people out in the name of high performance and call it leadership.

So I asked: How do we develop people at work in a way that makes them better leaders, teammates, and humans—without grinding them down?

‍

Taking a Stand

That question led me to write Good Authority. For nearly a decade, we helped people have the hard conversations through workshops, manager training, and executive coaching programs. But we struggled to do that work at scale. People left educated, and maybe inspired, but then faced too many moments in the day where it felt too difficult to put the ideas into practice. The truth is, adults don’t just need training. They need someone by their side in those moments.

When generative AI arrived, I saw a possibility: what if real coaching, the kind that challenges, could be available anytime, right when people need it most? Not to replace human connection, but to enhance it. To prepare you for a tough 1:1, nudge you toward curiosity, or sit with you as you draft that difficult email and ask: Is this honest? Is this kind? Is this who I want to be in the world?

That’s why I created Ren in 2024.

‍

What I Believe

The future of work is about shifting the sequence—putting personal growth first.

Not the company’s goals.

Not the business outcomes.

The person.

Work doesn’t have to suck. Most of us spend more time with colleagues than family, and those relationships matter. The quality of our communication shapes culture, and culture determines whether people dread Mondays or feel alive at work.

I believe people want to grow. I believe most managers want to develop their teams, but lack support in the moments that matter. And I believe the fastest way to change the world is to change people’s experience of work. Not because work is everything, I learned that as a monk. But because when work becomes a place to be real, to grow, to have honest conversations that make you a better human, everything else in your life changes too.

That’s what we’re building at Ren. Not another performance management tool. Not another top-down leadership initiative that won't stick. But a genuine partner in becoming the kind of leader, and the kind of person, you always wished you worked for.

‍

Warmly,

Jonathan Raymond
Founder & CEO, Ren
Author, Good Authority™