Claira was born of necessity and has rethought the problem entirely.
Claira understands language. That is her secret-sauce. Language understanding makes Claira more effective, more accurate and more intelligent.
​
Here are some of the team members who are making Claira help you make smarter decisions...
Meet Claira's Leadership Team
Eric Chang, CFA
Eric is an innovation driver & product leader across financial services having built FinTech startups from the ground up, including a big data surveillance company in partnership with Credit Suisse & Palantir. Grounded and inspired by a decade of research, investment, and modeling experience at a number of blue-chip financial service firms, including Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, AQR, & Goldman Sachs, Eric continues to lead innovation & digital transformation in finance. Eric has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University.
Alex Schumacher, Ph.D.
Alex heads research & data science as a specialist in Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and turning unstructured text into usable business insights. Alex has developed unique subject matter expertise in applying both NLP & NLU across complex financial service documents. Alex holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Linguistics and was most recently affiliated with the Oxford e-Research Centre at the University of Oxford. In addition, Alex blogs regularly about financial contracts.
.jpg)
Joe Squeri
Joseph is experienced in building, scaling, and transforming AI fintechs by applying innovative technology and data science alongside strategic investment capital. He is a trusted partner, advisor, and investor with a proven track record at best-in-class firms and FinTech start-ups. Former technology leader at Google and Global CIO/CTO at Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays Bank, Joe has received numerous industry awards, including a multi-year winner of Institutional Investor’s Tech Top 50, Wall Street’s Elite 8, and the Technology Gold Standard Award for Innovation in Finance.
Federico Polacov
Federico Polacov is Claira’s VP of Engineering and former co-founder of a Stanford-sponsored AI-driven health technology startup based on Machine Learning for health forecasting and treatment recommendation, which he took to a successful exit. Federico’s engineering accomplishments also include successful product developments in Computer Vision and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technologies. After completing his MS in Computer Science, Federico participated in computer vision research projects at the Stanford University’s AI Lab.
Yulia Spektor
Yulia Spektor is a computational linguist specializing in natural language processing and information retrieval. Yulia capitalizes on her 10 years of experience in the nitty-gritty of legal translation to provide contractual data expertise, produce research insights, and build effective statistical and machine learning models designed for the legal domain.
Sara Kowalski
Sara is an accomplished linguist experienced in entity-recognition AI. In addition, Sara has experience in rating entities to improve search and prioritization algorithms. Having mastered linguistic annotation, writing, copyediting, tutoring, and the Japanese language, Sara certainly isn’t shy of taking on challenging assignments. One of Sara’s numerous accomplishments includes a thesis titled "Syntax in Eastern Armenian: A Sketch Grammar" where she elicited and recorded segments from a native speaker.
Brad Johnston
Brad comes with a wealth of experience in FinTech Sales and business development. Previously, he has established and run sales teams at multiple firms including alternative lending platforms, a financial data and benchmarking firm, and an AI-based communication and digital assistant platform. Brad is a lifelong "dog guy" having grown up in Upstate NY where his family owned a kennel. Brad has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Brad lives in Brooklyn with his wife & and two daughters.
Michael Mourounas,
Ph.D.
Michael Mourounas is a computational linguist specializing in syntactic analysis and natural language understanding. Mike has experience building NLP systems from conception to deployment and integrating those solutions into SaaS products at scale. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from University College London, where his research focused on formal semantics and co-reference.
Our Advisors
Boris Mizhen
Boris Mizhen is an experienced technology leader, builder of startups, advisor, and ML enthusiast. He has been a technology leader at several top-notch tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and VP of Engineering at Exos Financial. Boris is a senior technology advisor to Claira.
Sean Brady
Sean Brady is a brilliant strategic thinker and advisor. Having been a lawyer specializing in financial agreements at a prominent law firm, then a financial products structurer at a top European Bank, Sean knows finance. He's now gone full-on in building successful startups and makes for an awesome advisor.
Douglas T. Healy, CFA
Douglas Healy is an experienced, global financial professional with expertise at the intersection of insurance, asset management, and the financial markets. He has proven capabilities in building asset management businesses and deep knowledge of the insurance industry. He has more than thirty years of experience at major financial firms Credit Suisse, AXA Investment Managers and CS First Boston and has served as Director and Treasurer on multiple non-profit boards. A Chartered Financial Analyst®, he graduated with a BA in English and Economics from Dartmouth College.
Jason Manske
Jason Manske is a financial services expert who sees the future of the industry. Having spent over two decades at major firms like J.P. Morgan and MetLife, he has a deep understanding of the pains experienced by both the buy and sell side. As an advisor, Jason now guides Claira towards driving the change he believes will come to the industry.