Jimmy Chen
Founder & CEO (Propel)
Current City: Brooklyn, NY |
Stanford: B.S. in Symbolic Systems
Big Tech to Big Impact: Left Facebook, LinkedIn & Yahoo to build tech that strengthens the social safety net
Why He’s Different: Applies Silicon Valley-style innovation to a system that has long been ignored
The Startup Moment: Propel now serves 5M+ families, helping them manage government benefits, save money, and find financial stability
Forbes’ Take: Named one of the 50 Hottest Fintechs six years in a row
For Jimmy Chen, entrepreneurship isn’t about disruption—it’s about fixing what’s broken in plain sight. He could have stayed on the fast track at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, climbing the product management ladder at some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Instead, he walked away to tackle one of America’s most neglected challenges: the broken social safety net.
Jimmy founded Propel to prove that low-income families—who navigate complex government benefits and financial insecurity daily—deserve the same level of thoughtful, user-friendly tech that Silicon Valley builds for everything else. Today, Propel (formerly Fresh EBT) helps 5 million families check their food stamp balances, find work, and stretch their money further. The company has been recognized as one of Forbes’ 50 Hottest Fintechs six years running, a rare feat in a space few investors considered “disruptable.”
His journey isn’t the usual founder story of venture funding and rapid scaling—it’s one of deep mission, smart execution, and refusing to accept ‘this is just the way things are.’
At Stanford, Jimmy studied Symbolic Systems, a degree at the intersection of tech and human behavior—a perfect foundation for rethinking the way social benefits work. His time on the Stanford Men’s Ultimate Team and in the Stanford in Washington program hinted at his ability to work the long game and navigate complex systems—whether in policy or the fast-moving world of tech startups.
For Jimmy, being an entrepreneur isn’t just about starting something new—it’s about starting something that matters. And in doing so, he’s rewriting the narrative of what fintech can be.
