It’s a Chimed Life®: Meet Marco Rodriguez Montiel, Senior Program Manager
It’s a Chimed Life®: Meet Marco Rodriguez Montiel, Senior Program Manager
How Marco Rodriguez’s lived experience fuels his focus on Chime members
Marco Rodriguez’s path to a career in fintech began long before his first role in the industry. It’s a story shaped by generations of upward mobility—rooted in rural farming, strengthened by access to education, and propelled by financial inclusion. Growing up in Tijuana, Mexico—a border town just across from San Diego—Marco was exposed to U.S. and Mexican cultures, languages, and ways of thinking, and he also became aware of how access to basic services like education, healthcare, and banking could differ dramatically depending on where you were.
That perspective wasn’t just abstract; it was personal. His grandparents came from rural Mexico, where infrastructure was limited. Over time, financial tools gave his parents the means to pursue higher education and launch a business—building stability that opened doors for the next generation. “I wouldn’t have been able to pursue my MBA without access to financing either,” Marco says. “It’s a clear example of how the right tools, at the right time, can change a trajectory.”
Today, that lived experience shapes Marco’s work on Chime’s Operations & Member Experience (OMX) team. He focuses on identifying and removing the barriers that can stand in the way of a great member experience. His goal is to make every touchpoint feel intuitive, inclusive, and designed for real life.
A passion for progress
In high school, a passionate economics teacher opened Marco’s eyes to the power of development economics. “She explained it like a race,” Marco recalls. “Imagine runners starting at different points on the field, with different shoes, and some even injured—how is that fair? Development economics is about leveling that field.”
Determined to work in economic development, Marco studied economics and began working in government for the Ministry of Finance. While not development work in the traditional sense, Marco got a front-row seat to how financial regulation was evolving—especially in fintech. “If I cared about economic development, I realized financial inclusion was the most powerful lever,” he says. “Offering more people access to financial tools leads to better well-being.”
Reconnecting with purpose
After government work in the Ministry of Finance, Marco moved into the private sector, but his roles in finance and planning in the Banking Sector felt too removed from his personal mission of expanding financial access. “It was all about profitability and doing more with less. I didn’t feel like I was doing what I set out to do.”
That tension led Marco to pursue an MBA with a clear goal: to find a company where financial inclusion wasn’t a side project, but the mission. “From the beginning, Chime stood out—I actually talked about Chime in my MBA applications,” he laughs. “I wanted to work at a company that combined purpose with smart, scalable business.”
Solving problems that matter
Today, Marco drives key initiatives on Chime’s OMX team, leading efforts that bridge product, operations, and member behavior. Focused on lending, savings, and engagement, he uses data, feedback, and process design to tackle root causes of member pain—whether through smarter education, operational changes, or product improvements.
“No two days are the same,” he says. “I could be working with Legal to turn state-level regulations into scalable processes, refining Gen AI chatbot responses, or analyzing thousands of support tickets to understand where the product or support experience could improve. But it always comes back to one question: Are our members better off because of what we did today?”
Marco is a firm believer that data should guide decisions—whether it’s service NPS, contact rates, or handle time. But he’s equally mindful that metrics are most powerful when paired with a deep understanding of the member experience. “If we over-index on numbers alone, we risk solving the wrong problem,” he says. “Sure, we could lower contact rates by making it harder to get support. But that doesn’t mean we’re doing better by our members. The goal is to design experiences that make support less necessary in the first place. And if members do contact support, that experience should make them love Chime even more.”
Staying close to Chime’s mission—and his own
Marco stays close to the people Chime is building for. He regularly listens to member support calls through Chime’s Member Voice sessions, dives into support tickets, and analyzes behavioral data to spot patterns and pain points. “Listening to a call gives you the emotional context. Reading tickets shows patterns. Looking at the data helps you see what’s scalable,” he says. “I try to learn from all of it.”
His learning doesn’t stop with members—Marco actively collaborates across teams, from legal and compliance to engineering and design, to understand every angle of a challenge. “The more perspectives I take in, the better I can connect dots and design solutions that actually work,” he says.
That blend of empathy, data thinking, and curiosity shapes how he solves problems. “This is the first place I’ve worked where the mission and the business are aligned in such a real way,” Marco says. “Solving hard problems here has real stakes for real people, and that’s very meaningful to me”.