About us

With decades of experience in recruitment, technology and financial services, our team strived to create the premier platform for talent recruitment, by bringing job seekers and hiring managers together through our proprietary algorithm.

Michael Rich

Founder and President

Michael is the founding partner and President of TalentAlgo, Inc., whose concept is the realization of his 30 years of IT & Quantitative recruiting experience. Working his way up from recruiter to account manager and eventually owning his recruiting firm, it is his work with the people and the groups involved in all aspects of talent identification and career management that formed the foundation of the TalentAlgo vision. TalentAlgo was founded with the principle that making ideal matches serves the holistic needs of candidates and hiring organizations. He believes a Placement Agency is better suited to make effective matches for candidates and hiring organizations, as honesty, transparency, and integrity are essential to a successful match. Always a "people person," Michael firmly believes that finding the right person for the right job requires a deep understanding of people — their motivations, training, experiences and life journey.
Michael envisioned a better way to bring job seekers and hiring managers together with greater precision, safety, and efficiency. With this vision, Michael enlisted our team to develop the Algorithmic Matchmaking Platform and change the recruiting landscape to be more effective and efficient for all involved.

Roger Kaplan

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Roger is the Chief Technology Officer and a co-founder of TalentAlgo. He has worked for five of the world's largest financial institutions over 25 years, ascending from developer to senior management, whilst always remaining hands-on. His career has followed senior business leaders who have enthusiastically brought Roger with them to new opportunities because of his entrepreneurial spirit, deep understanding of financial markets and front/middle office functions, and how the appropriate use of technology effectively supports complex businesses. His diverse skillset, while grounded in technology, has allowed him to be successful in a variety of roles spanning programming, project management, product management, architecture, strategy, business analysis, and senior management.
Roger developed a passion for programming an Apple ][ at age 11, and went on to earn a B.S. degree in Computer Science (minor in Management) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After an internship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Roger returned to his native New York City and began his career in financial services IT. Roger's unique experience and skillsets have driven the technical and business strategy and architecture for TalentAlgo. He has also taken this opportunity to return to his roots and personally built the first generation of the TalentAlgo platform.

George Pastrana

Co-Founder and Chief Modeling Officer

George is the Chief Modeling Officer and a co-founder of TalentAlgo. George has a history of successfully applying his strong academic background in experimental and theoretical physics to quantitative solutions in the financial services industry. He has held Head Quant and Senior Risk Officer roles at top-tier investment banks, trading houses, hedge funds as well as small advisory firms and a few start-ups. His primary focus throughout his areer has been to formulate, define and build mathematically rigorous models for application in trading, risk measurement and management, risk and financial control, comprehensive Capital Management and Third-Party Risk Management. He has also applied his expertise to identify investment opportunities and management control structures in Central America.
George holds a B.S. degree in Physics with a minor in Philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Accepted into the PhD program, he is ABD in Physics from Stanford University. George has had the privilege to work under two different Nobel Prize winning physicists, each team working on Experimental High Energy Physics. At TalentAlgo, George has been instrumental to guiding the data mining of resumes to develop our underlying lexicon and taxonomy. In addition, he has developed our proprietary mathematical algorithm that provides precision to matching and scoring candidates for well-defined job requirements.