For Kirill Bigai, building Preply began with a sharp focus on unmet needs in education. He recognized that traditional language learning tools often failed to address learners’ real goals and so he set out to create a platform centered on live, personalized instruction. Today, as CEO of Preply, he leads a global language-learning marketplace with over 40,000 tutors teaching in 50 languages to students across 180 countries. By using AI to optimize tutor-student matches, Bigai has scaled the platform to serve individuals and global organizations like ByteDance, McKinsey, and Mercedes, all while keeping personal connection at the heart of the experience.
Originally from Ukraine, Bigai grew up dismantling gadgets to understand how they worked—an early sign of the curiosity that would later drive his entrepreneurial path. He earned a bachelor’s degree in international economic relations from Kyiv National Economic University. In his role at Preply, Bigai guides strategy, global growth, and product development, always anchored by a belief that education should be both effective and accessible. He was inspired early on by the transformational power of learning and remains committed to making high-quality instruction available to anyone with an internet connection.
One of the moments that reinforced Bigai’s mission came early on, when a student shared the excitement of completing their first lesson with a tutor from another continent. “It was a watershed event because it proved that technology could genuinely cross educational boundaries,” he recalls. Experiences like these drive his continued focus on building not just a platform, but a community. Bigai is also acutely aware of the potential downsides of EdTech like algorithmic bias and diminished human interaction and works to ensure that Preply’s tools enhance, rather than replace, meaningful learning relationships.