EVERYTHING CAN BE OPTIMIZED.
Powerful Trading Model with Other Applications
The Talking Leaves framework was developed for quantitative trading and is actively running our quant hedge fund. The abstract time-series / simulation layer would also add value in adjacent industries.
FRAMEWORK HIGHLIGHTS
Time-Tested
Our framework is backed by 18+ person-years of focused development and four years of production trading.
Clean Design
Our proprietary framework is comprised of a mathematically abstract layer and a finance specific layer.
Smart Collaboration
Innovative distributed caching accelerates research by streamlining reproducibility and shared experimentation.
We model everything end-to-end—from raw inputs to outgoing orders—in an optimized, automated framework. Built-in reproducibility, time-aware design, and distributed caching streamline collaboration, allowing the team to focus on true innovation: new markets, new data, new signals, and cutting-edge AI techniques.
LEADERSHIP
Jade Vinson, Ph.D., CFA
Founder & CEO
Experience:
Jade has 17 years of experience in quantitative trading: 9 years advancing all aspects of world-best trading systems at Renaissance Technologies and 8 years assembling a team and building an all-new trading system at Talking Leaves.
Prior to quantitative trading, Jade had a successful academic career in Mathematics, Genome Assembly, and Comparative Genomics.
Career Highlight:
Fun Facts:
Jade has served as a Trustee of the National Museum of Mathematics since 2013.
In recreational mathematics, he is known for unique jewelry design of “Pythagorean Earrings”.
Jeff Lee
Head of Quantitative Engineering
Experience:
Jeff was the first hire at Talking Leaves, with a background in software consulting and a focus on computer vision and machine learning. He met Jade through Deep Learning RTP, where they both led technical study groups. Jeff holds a degree in Economics from UNC Chapel Hill.
Career Highlight:
Jeff was the go-to software generalist for the North Carolina Medicaid intake pipeline. Through bug fixes and automation, he helped deliver about $10M in annual time savings for case workers, along with harder-to-quantify gains like reduced liability. His proudest moments came from untangling thorny, manual cases—tracing issues to specific bugs and resolving them so people could receive the correct benefits quickly.
Fun Facts:
Jeff is an avid track enthusiast who competes in NASA Time Trials, driving a 1999 Mazda Miata. He currently holds the NASA TT6 track record at Summit Point Main and previously held the record at Virginia International Raceway (VIR), where he remains within a second of reclaiming the title.
