Jay Adejumoke-Jagun Kao works in the office of the COO (Chief Operating Officer) at the D. E. Shaw group, where she leads projects on large language models and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Before rejoining D. E. Shaw, she was Partner and first General Counsel of a NY-based venture capital fund called AlleyCorp. For the first 15 years of her career, after graduating from Harvard Law School, Jay was a derivatives and trading lawyer at both Davis Polk & Wardwell and the D. E. Shaw group. She invests in start-ups with a social impact and serves as an advisory board member for Birthright AFRICA.
Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Jay moved to the U.S. with her family in 11th grade and enrolled in Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring Maryland. After graduating high school at 15, she first attended Montgomery Community College in Rockville, Maryland. She then transferred to University of Maryland College Park and graduated with a degree in Elementary Education and a concentration in Mathematics. Before her current career in law and business, Jay worked as a 5th grade teacher at Cherokee Lane Elementary School in Adelphi, Maryland.