We’re thrilled to celebrate Kaye Oleo, Chime’s Director of Brand Marketing, on being named to Ad Age’s 2025 Leading Women list! The award honors women who are not only driving transformation in marketing, advertising, and creative work, but who are also empowering teams, building relationships, and delivering business results that move the industry forward.
At ChimeⓇ, we’ve seen that firsthand. Over the past seven-plus years, Kaye has helped shape and scale Chime’s brand with creative bravery, strategic clarity, and a whole lot of heart. From building our social voice from scratch to evolving into a deeply respected leader, her impact is undeniable—and unmistakably Chime. Below, she reflects on her journey, her approach to leadership, and the moments that helped define it all.
How do you approach balancing creativity and strategy in your work?
I think what's interesting about the idea of balance is that it's relative, and what you think are the right proportions for that time. To me, building a brand is a combination of creativity and data, and in the earlier days, we definitely leaned more heavily into the creativity side of things. We trusted our gut, followed our instincts, and took a lot of risks. It doesn't sound like much reflecting on it now, but we built a brand through our social channels by being deeply tapped into culture, using levity and humor, with the goal of meeting everyday people where they're at when it comes to their finances. That approach helped us stand out— especially in a sea of sameness that is the finance industry—fostering a truly engaged community across our channels.
As we enter this next chapter, especially as a public company, what may have worked yesterday may not necessarily get us to where we want to go next. Our strategy has to evolve, and the aperture to which we were operating under, has to get wider. It's about applying more rigor, more analysis, and more data. That balance essentially just needs to be recalibrated, and I don't think that dampens creativity at all. It sharpens it.
To me, the right strategy can amplify creative ideas, and make them work harder, together. When you're dialed in on the job to be done, you can relentlessly focus on the things you believe will accomplish the goals, create breakthroughs, and be something you're proud of. I'm so bullish on our team, and am excited to see us in this new era.
Can you share a defining moment in your career that helped shape your leadership style?
This isn't one moment in particular, but honestly, building Chime's Social Team from the ground up is such a defining moment for me. I came into Chime with no grandiose expectations, let alone any intentions of being a leader at all. I came in as a Social Media Manager and was just excited to be here. The social strategy that I had developed was just born out of what I wanted to consume from a finance brand, and really, what I thought was missing in mainstream culture. Over time, we started seeing success, which caused our scope to increase. Suddenly, I found myself leading a team, deepening that vision, and creating something bigger than myself.
There are days I look back and think, "how the hell did I get here?" There's that meme that says "when you suddenly become important at work," and really, I feel that to my core. I owe so much to Chris Terschluse, Melissa Alvarado, Renaldo Chapman, Orlando Baeza, and Vineet Mehra. I don't know how I got so lucky to have had so many people here at Chime believe in me, and see something in me that I myself don’t even see.
As a leader, communication is everything to me. It’s the source of so much—growth, clarity, trust. I spend a lot of time working on becoming a better communicator, because it’s only through communication that my team will feel empowered: to make decisions, to challenge ideas (especially mine!), to help sharpen each other. Iron sharpens iron, but only when people feel safe enough to swing.
Tell us about how Chime’s brand has evolved since you joined the team. What are some of your proudest or most defining moments?
When I started, we didn’t have a brand, at least not in the way we think about brand today. At the time, we were heads-down building the best product possible, and brand grew as a natural result of how we showed up for our members.
Social became our entry point. Our strategy was simple: meet people where they are with socially native content that connects them to the product and helps them better understand their finances. We spent every day focused on educating, motivating, and building community. That consistency created real connection.
One of the most powerful unlocks for us was humor – more specifically, the allowance to be fun and playful, and have that be received so successfully by our followers. We leaned into trends and meme culture early, before it was a playbook move, and it helped us build emotional resonance and relatability that people genuinely responded to. When you have people tagging their friends in the comments saying things like "this is so me" or "come get your bank," or even asking who the social media manager is, these were all signals to us that we were on to something special. You don't see that kind of interaction with many brands, let alone in the financial category.
Those early moments laid the groundwork for the brand DNA we still carry today: community-first, culturally aware, and always human. And that’s something I’m really proud of.
How do you stay inspired and continue growing in your role?
I've been incredibly fortunate to continue growing at Chime. I started my career here specifically in social, to now have the opportunity to lead the Brand Team, and work on all things / channels related to the brand. It's really exciting, a little scary, but there's no other brand I know inside and out, and want to impact as much as Chime.
In terms of staying inspired, the IPO, what it symbolized, and how it's really just the start of our journey is a source of inspiration that's most top of mind. It's such an interesting feeling to have been here for so long, feel an emotional attachment to accomplishing this milestone, but also simultaneously recognizing that it's the beginning. It’s been said that Chime’s in its second inning, and I completely agree. I feel like I caught my second wind.
What’s one piece of advice you wish you could give your younger self?
I used to think I was just making a bunch of random decisions with no real plan. After college, I tried to start a company. I took jobs that didn’t feel connected to each other. And for a long time, I felt insecure about all of it. There's that stereotypical linear path that everyone talks about, and mine didn't look anything like that.
What I’d tell that version of me is: you are building something, even if you can’t see the shape of it yet. If a decision feels right in the moment, trust yourself. It doesn’t have to make perfect sense to anyone else, or even to you, right away. Every step, every experience, is adding to your story.
And the truth is, it’s not just going to “work out” by chance. It works out because you have the power to make it work. You can shift directions. You can choose again. I’m here now, and while the path wasn’t straight, it was mine—and that’s made all the difference.
