The Team
120+ years of institutional expertise.
Goldman Sachs · Morgan Stanley · Merrill Lynch · BofA · Citadel · AlphaQuest — combined across our leadership and advisory board.
Founders
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 and scaled a multi-platform AI conglomerate spanning 18 industries and the Matrix intelligence engine that drives it.
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
Reemaa Zaka
Chief Marketing Officer
Multi-asset trader with extensive experience across equities, commodities, options, forex, and futures — actively managing diversified positions across global markets with a macro-driven, cross-asset approach. Maintains deep fluency in how geopolitical shifts, monetary policy, and capital flows create opportunity across asset classes and geographies. This firsthand market immersion makes her a rare CMO: one who speaks the language of institutional traders and sophisticated investors, and can position Zaelestis's platforms with both conviction and credibility.
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.
Jacky Chen
Senior Analyst & Algo Trader
Financial analyst and algo trader whose cybersecurity background gives him a distinctive edge in designing trading systems — with a focus on options, futures, and the behavioral dynamics that drive market microstructure. Builds fully automated trading systems that encode the crowd psychology of both professional and retail participants, translating real-world market behavior into precise, executable logic. Brings a technically rigorous, security-aware approach to algorithmic strategy development across Zaelestis's trading infrastructure.
Katrina Rodkina
Frontend Developer & Technology Specialist
Full Stack Web Developer specializing in JavaScript and the PERN stack (PostgreSQL, Express, React, Node.js), with production experience across React/Redux application development, data extraction pipelines, and backend systems at WorkFusion. Prior experience at popshop spans front-end UI and backend component development with JavaScript and Django. Known for taking the time to fully understand the problem before building the solution — delivering scalable, high-quality code with an eye for performance and multi-team collaboration across continents.
Advisory Board
Combined 100+ years at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, BofA, Citadel, AlphaQuest · Harvard · Yale · Cambridge
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.
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.
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.