From restaurant floors to 84,000-square-foot buildouts, Jackie Tsai’s journey into workplace experience wasn’t traditional, but it’s been transformational. Today, she leads with intention, designing physical spaces that bring people together and help Chime thrive.
Jackie Tsai didn’t plan to work in workplace experience. In fact, she didn’t even know it was a career path.
“I went to school to become a nurse,” she says. “But then I failed anatomy. Twice. That was probably a sign.”
What followed was a stretch of uncertainty. She considered interior design. Took a short-term contract as a “Workplace Assistant” just to get by. And found herself stepping into a tech office for the first time, where she began stocking copy rooms, organizing storage closets, and setting up happy hours.
“It was a completely different world,” she says. “I wasn’t used to an 8-to-5 schedule, talking to people all day. I’d go home wiped. But I loved it. I started realizing, this is my job? This is actually…fun?”
One early moment shaped her perspective: “I was organizing a chaotic storage room,” she recalls. A task that felt minor to her, but earned a big reaction from her office manager. “She told me how helpful it was, and how it changed how she did her work. That stuck with me. Something that felt small to me made a huge impact on someone else.”
That sense of impact—of building behind the scenes to create a better experience for others—became the throughline of Jackie’s career.
A product mindset for the modern workplace
Jackie grew up in the restaurant world. Her mom owned a small business, and Jackie learned early what it meant to create moments that mattered: to anticipate needs, care for people, and pay attention to the details others might overlook.
That hospitality lens has shaped her approach to the workplace experience. But as she explains, it’s not the full story.
“In the workplace world, there’s been this big movement to merge hospitality with workplace experience, to treat employees like customers and the office like a service,” she says. “That brought empathy and the desire to create joy in everyday interactions. But I believe the next chapter goes beyond hospitality—it’s about adopting a product mindset.”
For Jackie and her team, that means thinking like builders and designing programs, spaces, and systems that evolve with how people work. She sees their role not just as serving, but also as solving.
“It’s less about ‘the customer is always right,’ and more about creating the right solutions that help our people thrive,” she says. “We iterate. We test. We learn from feedback and data. Our job is to design for how Chime works best.”
Why Chime
When Jackie joined Chime in 2021, the future of work was being rewritten in real time. Many companies were still fully remote. Office strategies were in flux. And questions about workplace culture were everywhere.
“I was spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, looking for ideas, seeing what companies were prioritizing,” she says. “That’s where Chime stood out. Not just because of the mission, but because of how people and culture were showing up publicly. It felt real.”
It was also the first time she truly connected with a product: “I had always worked at B2B companies before where the products didn’t fully resonate,” she admits. “With Chime, I could see myself in our members’ shoes. I understood the impact we were making.”
Building spaces with purpose
Jackie came on board when Chime was still in its Maiden Lane office, with no official return-to-office policy in place. Today, she leads a growing team responsible for real estate, office design, and workplace programming across multiple hubs.
In four years, she’s earned two promotions and is now overseeing the construction of Chime’s newest space, an 84,000 square-foot buildout in New York City. “It’s the first project where I’m making every decision, and it’s a huge milestone,” she says. “We just started construction, and I can’t wait to bring people through it when it opens.” But the office buildout isn’t just about design—it’s about momentum.
“We want to create spaces that make it easy for people to do their best work,” Jackie says. “Whether that’s bringing people together for a team onsite, an ergonomics fair, or finding the snacks they like, it all adds up to a shared sense of purpose.”
Leading with trust
When it comes to leading her own team, Jackie focuses on setting clear expectations, encouraging true ownership, and giving people the freedom to take the lead. “I’m a big believer in giving people autonomy,” she says. “I tell my team: you’re the expert, not me. I’ll share my perspective, but I trust you to run with it.”
She also doesn’t shy away from feedback, whether it’s from her team or Chimers across the company. One recent example: during Chime’s internal Hack Week, a team proposed physical wayfinding maps to help people navigate the office.
“Instead of thinking, why didn’t they ask us?, we saw it as a signal, a need we hadn’t fully solved,” Jackie says. “Now we’re working on a sprint to update signage and explore tools like Matterport to meet people where they are.”
What’s next
Looking ahead, Jackie’s excited by the evolution of workplace experience, especially at Chime. “People are reimagining what the office is for,” she explains. “It’s no longer just a place to work, it’s a space to connect, collaborate, and build a shared sense of purpose—a place where people can do their best work and feel part of something bigger. Our goal is to design environments that bring those moments to life.”
That means continuing to grow a team of builders who think about Chime’s spaces, programs, and experiences as products that evolve with how people work. “We’ll keep testing ideas, learning from data, and refining over time,” Jackie says. “That’s what makes our approach unique: we’re not just hosting people, we’re designing the future of how they come together.”
From her first day restocking copy paper to leading a new office buildout, Jackie’s story and approach to her role in workplace is a reminder that great spaces—and great careers—are built one thoughtful decision at a time.