Coen started off his career as lecturer  in Electronics Engineering at the University of Pretoria. During this period he got his first taste of high tech start-ups through his involvement with LGI (Pty) Ltd and its evolution towards Technotron (Pty) Ltd. In 1983 he moved on to Armscor where he was divisional manager responsible for the defence industry’s Technology Management Portfolio. He got involved in his first startup company, Lambda Technology (Pty) Ltd as marketing director and key shareholder in 1988. In 1989 he founded DataFusion Systems (Pty) Ltd to address the voice technology market. DataFusion developed its own intellectual property in this fast changing field and became the South African market leader in 1996. In 1999 when he sold off his share of 50% in the company to the listed entity Spescom Ltd, it employed 250 people. He founded BrainWorks (Pty) Ltd in July 1999. Coen holds a BSc Eng degree, an MBA and has completed the Owner- Manager Executive Programme at Harvard.