John Heffernan
John Heffernan is Director of Experience at Trillium Trading, a proprietary equity trading firm, where he leads a multi-division group whose work spans content, branding, learning and development, knowledge management, AI integration, and trader-facing technology. He built the group from its inception and today leads the team that supports traders and staff in Trillium’s New York, Chicago, and Miami offices.
As a former Senior Executive Trader, John spent more than a decade on Trillium’s trading desk, specializing in intraday, momentum, and event-driven strategies before building the firm’s experience function. His years on the desk gave him firsthand insight into the challenges traders face and positioned him to translate frontline market experience into the technology, training, and communications that support them. He also helped shape Trillium’s technology initiatives, contributing to the design and development of proprietary platforms that remain core to the firm’s trading operations today.
John built Trillium’s centralized, searchable knowledge platform, establishing the firm’s definitive reference for how its trading software works, and scaled it into core infrastructure. That work became the foundation for TEXT, Trillium’s Experience Team, the group he now leads. The same instinct for capturing frontline knowledge now shapes how TEXT channels trader feedback directly into the firm’s software roadmap.
John founded Trillium’s Markets Immersion Internship, an early-talent program run in partnership with organizations including Futures and Options and ATLAS Fellows, where participants develop across both markets and a functional specialization. He personally supervises and mentors the interns and fellows, many of whom continue with the firm through their early college years. Within Trillium’s internship and training programs, he leads regular seminars on trading technology and the firm’s experience initiatives. Through the firm’s partnership with MENTOR Newark, he previously served as a mentor and earned the organization’s top mentoring award.
Throughout his career, John has turned new initiatives into lasting infrastructure, building systems that stand on their own. His work centers on developing talent, capturing and systematizing frontline knowledge, and applying AI to scale the impact of high-performing teams.
John holds a B.S. in Finance from Stevens Institute of Technology, where he graduated with the top GPA in the undergraduate business school.