It’s a Chimed Life: Meet Jason Howard
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When Jason Howard started his career in banking, he quickly realized what a behemoth the banking system is.
His career took him to several regional banks, then international banking. He moved several times for his work, went through a couple of acquisitions, and developed a love for banking — and mild weather in cities like London and Amsterdam.
“Working in big banks gave me a look into the macro-level things that happen at a bank, like their profit models and how they target consumers,” Jason explains. “It didn’t give me the warm and fuzzies, though — I just realized what a beast of a process banking really is.”
So in 2008, Jason took a leap and joined his first Fintech startup in San Francisco. “It completely opened my eyes and I was impressed by the nimbleness, lack of red tape, and the ability to enact solutions really quickly,” he says. He’d found a world that took the system he wanted to change and combined it with the flexibility and pace of small startups — the perfect combination for him.
Taken by surprise by Chicago
One day, after he’d been at a few startups and through some acquisitions, Groupon called him with a job. The only rub? It was in Chicago. “You can tell by my living in London, San Francisco, and Amsterdam that I’m a fair-weather kind of guy,” says Jason. He refused the offer, but Groupon kept at it. Eventually, Jason accepted an offer to join Groupon.
“I begrudgingly moved to Chicago, but my opinion of the city has dramatically changed since then,” he says. During his first Chicago winter, Jason cursed himself and wondered why he had left the mild San Francisco weather. But then summer arrived.
“Chicago becomes a different city in the summertime,” Jason says. “We have block parties and the lake basically becomes our ocean,” he adds. He was sold on Chicago.
So when we called him with a position as our Senior Director of Risk, Jason kindly thanked us and said no. “I remember saying, ‘Thanks, but I’m not looking to move back to San Francisco.’” When we finally explained that we wanted him to open our second office in Chicago, Jason was intrigued.
“The more I learned about what Chime was doing in the space, the more it took me back to my original banking experience,” he says. “But instead of the model of the giant banks I’d worked for before, the ones that targeted their customers with experiences and products designed to profit off of them, Chime was actually working to help its members.” Jason joined our team as the Senior Director of Risk and our Chicago office lead in the fall of 2019.
The unique opportunity at Chime
There are startups in Chicago and there are Fintech startups — but there aren’t a lot of Fintech startups focused on the banking experience* for the consumer. Instead, much of Fintech in Chicago focuses on lending services, but they’re not services meant for the same audience that we serve at Chime.
Most lending services are intended for middle-income earners, whereas Chime’s audience is far more broad — we really want to make managing money accessible to everyone, something Jason takes much pride in.
“It’s powerful to come to a job that you’re proud of.”
Jason is also proud of the way we’re building our Chicago office and team. His role in Chime Chicago represents an interesting opportunity to develop the processes and tooling his team uses alongside them as they scale.
“Many people come from companies where they inherited processes and weren’t necessarily involved in the setup or evolution of them,” he explains. Instead of inheriting processes or tools, however, his team is creating them: “Every new hire at this point is taking their unique expertise from their previous experience and implementing what worked.”
Jason’s approach to scaling his team is necessary: Chime’s member base is growing and we’re continuing to grow as a business, even while other companies in the Chicago area are scaling back. “We’re hiring because we need to for our business to continue succeeding,” he says. “I want to make sure everyone joining the team has the opportunity to make an impact by leveraging their past experiences.”
“What I’ve found is that encouraging every new employee to bring their own expertise really energizes each individual and makes them feel empowered, resourceful, and important to an organization.”
Keeping the glue during COVID-19
Though COVID-19 has meant that all Chimers must work from home, we continue to support our members and employees through this time. And for Jason, he’s continuing to support his growing Chicago team through the changes they’ve faced.
“Before COVID, we were a very high touch, face-to-face company,” he explains. “It’s been an adjustment to go from flying every employee to San Francisco to onboard to running the entire process over Zoom.”
Overall, Jason feels the team is keeping the glue that connects them sticky despite changes in the onboarding process. Every team, including his own, has developed their own best practices to help keep connected. “We’re doing lunch and learns regularly, getting face time while balancing Zoom fatigue,” he says.
Chime Chicago may have changed how we onboard new employees, but the way Jason approaches his work is still the same, and the culture of the office — though remote — is thriving. “Things feel a little different than they did a few months ago, but our team is more empowered than ever to build a culture and company that serve our members and our own wellbeing,” he says. “As our team grows, our processes and culture are evolving, thanks to the experience every Chimer who joins us brings.”
*Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by, and debit card issued by, The Bancorp Bank or Stride Bank, N.A.; Members FDIC.
