Management

Joseph Chen

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Joe has been our founder and CEO since company inception. Joe immigrated to US in 1989 and settled in Wilmington, Delaware. He worked his way from flipping burgers at local Wendy’s to driving a truck for his uncle along I-95, putting himself through college. 

Joe started his career at Altec Industries, a leading equipment manufacturer based in Birmingham, Alabama. He was an engineer and then an area manager managing Altec’s East Asia sales effort.

In 1999 Joe started a social network company with two fellow Stanford engineering students and eventually raised over $10M from Goldman Sachs, KKR partners fund, and his classmates. Joe sold the company to a public company in 2000 and in 2001 moved to Dallas to pursue an optical networking startup.

In 2002 he started the predecessor of our company in Dallas envisioning the rise of mobile internet. After 9 years of founding and raising hundreds of millions from SoftBank, General Atlantic, Accel Partners, DCM, Technology Crossover Partners, etc., the company went public on the NYSE in 2011 as Renren Inc.

Since 2011 Joe led the company investment into many pioneering tech companies that included SoFi, Fundrise, Kiavi, Loadstar Capital, Paydy, Snowball Finance, BacklotCars, FiscalNote, Talech; XtalPai and Chrystal Pharmaceuticals, for many of which he served on the board.

Starting from 2016 Joe led the company's transformation from B2C Internet to B2B SaaS and exited the social networking business in China.  He started Lofty (previously known as Chime) in 2016 to serve real estate agents and brokers. His trucking experience led to the initial investment in Trucker Path and the acquisition of the company in 2017. In 2022 Lofty acquired UK-based company Rentancy and relaunched the product as LoftyWorks to serve the property management industry.

Joe holds a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Delaware, a master's degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a M.B.A. degree from Stanford University. He is a recipient of University of Delaware Presidential Citation, a member of Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network and a T360 Swanepoel Power 200 CEO.