Growing up in an immigrant family, Jonathan Chao experienced firsthand how difficult it was for his parents to manage and understand the expenses related to homeownership. After being employee 20 at Credit Karma, and years at Plaid, Chao committed his time and experience to change the way homeowners manage their mortgages and other expenses related to homeownership.

Haven created a platform to enable homeowners to better understand and manage the challenges of financing and owning a home. This type of platform, that both educated and engaged the consumer, did not exist before Jonathan created Haven. His experience working at Visa, Credit Karma and Plaid, in addition to his lived experiences growing up in an immigrant family, uniquely prepared him to create the Haven platform. In addition to his product knowledge and development, Chao focuses on the culture of the organization. Like many other fintechs, Haven is a remote-only company, with international employees. Chao prioritizes what he calls “rituals” to ensure the employees feel part of a team. Chao is the glue that holds Haven together, even as many teams are in different time zones, cultures and come from different backgrounds.

Chao helps ameliorate the challenges of a remote-only company structure with his rituals of highlighting success, transparency, team off-sites, and public recognition. In addition to his emphasis on company culture, Chao’s product expertise comes through in Haven’s client-facing products. The company’s designs and concepts are regularly recognized by both customers and industry veterans as being best in class. In fact, this year Haven was recognized as part of the HousingWire TECH100 award for the second year in a row. 

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

What really helped me was someone telling me that being right and being effective are not always the same thing, and that while ideas can and should come from anywhere and anyone, it’s execution and partnerships that makes a world of a difference.

Name:

Jonathan Chao

Age:

38

Title:

Co-founder and Chief Product Officer

Company Name:

Haven Servicing