The Team
120+ years of institutional expertise.
Goldman Sachs · Morgan Stanley · Merrill Lynch · BofA · Citadel · AlphaQuest — combined across our leadership and advisory board.
Founders
JZ
James L. Zhang
Co-Founder & CEO
Cambridge-trained mathematician (BA+MA). 16+ years investment management. SEC/FINRA licensed securities trader (Series 57). AI/Deep Learning architect with deep expertise in quantitative modeling, options analytics, and ML. Career began at AIG managing credit and market risk models for a $183B portfolio. Built 26 AI platforms across 20+ industries and the Matrix intelligence engine that identified every one of them.
BH
Bill Hajjar
Co-Founder & CRO
15+ years SaaS technology and enterprise sales. Built $10M+ TCV through high-performance teams. Achieved 1000% revenue expansion over three years through C-level outreach, contract negotiations, and pipeline optimization. 5 startup exits over 20 years spanning telecom, digital advertising, media, and sports technology industries.
Core Team
Yulia Teryaeva
Chief Marketing Officer
Marketing executive with expertise in digital growth strategy, user acquisition, and brand development across tech and consumer platforms. Previously Marketing Manager at Netflix and Senior Growth Marketing Manager at Kabam, leading app store optimization and growth initiatives across global markets. Education from Smith School of Business at Queen's University. Brings consumer-scale marketing discipline to Zaelestis's go-to-market execution across multiple verticals.
Ann-Sophie Hahn
Chief AI & Innovation Officer
PhD researcher in Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work at Nova School of Business and Economics — one of Europe's leading institutions for AI strategy and organizational transformation. Academic background spanning AI systems, business innovation, and the intersection of emerging technology with enterprise operations. FCT Scholarship and Fellowship for Excellence recipient. Bridges rigorous AI research with practical deployment strategy across Zaelestis's platform portfolio.
Thomas Wang
Machine Learning & Software Engineering
Computer scientist with extensive engineering experience building high-performance AI systems, full-stack applications, and real-time analytics platforms. Strong background in model optimization and production-grade software development. Committed to delivering reliable, scalable solutions and driving innovation through rigorous engineering practice — staying at the forefront of applied machine learning technologies.
Tony Wang
Data Science & Applied Machine Learning
Data scientist and software engineer focused on building rigorous, experiment-driven models and robust analytics pipelines. Experience spans epidemic intervention modeling, deep learning-based image restoration, and data-driven prediction of physical systems — complemented by solid software engineering in Python and modern ML frameworks. Committed to reproducible research, high-quality code, and turning complex real-world problems into scalable data-centered solutions.
JC
Jacky Chen
Senior Analyst & Algo Trader
Financial analyst and algo trader who transplants cybersecurity expertise into trading systems — specializing in options and futures markets. Translates professional and retail trader behavior into fully automated trading bots that reflect the crowd psychology of global financial markets.
KR
Katrina Rodkina
Frontend Developer & Technology Specialist
Full Stack Web Developer specializing in JavaScript and the PERN stack (PostgreSQL, Express, React, Node.js). Agile methodology with extensive multi-continental teamwork. Relentlessly focused on application optimization in execution speed and scalability across multidisciplinary projects.
Advisory Board
Combined 100+ years at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, BofA, Citadel, AlphaQuest · Harvard · Yale · Cambridge
AB
Andrew Banhidi
Technology Advisor
30 years experience with CTO roles at Instinet, FxAll, Merrill Lynch, and Bank of America — with development roles at Goldman Sachs. Deep expertise managing critical systems in analytics, trading, and settlement across equities, sales, research, and capital markets.
JN
John Neary
Trading & Risk Advisor
AlphaQuest President ($2B AUM). Founding Principal, 3000Kings LLC. COO of Fundamental Strategies + Global Credit at Citadel. Head of Equities Trading at Morgan Stanley. 15+ years at Goldman Sachs. Harvard MBA / Yale BA.
ED
Elias Diamantis
Product Advisor
20+ years equity product development. Senior Advisor / Board Advisor to VeloxAI. MD at Deutsche Bank / Merrill Lynch. Executive Director at Morgan Stanley & BofA. Founder, Arcadian Consulting LLC — specializing in technology transformation across institutional trading.