Our Co-founders

Ben Chestnut is co-founder of Mailchimp, the leading email and automations platform for growing businesses, where he served as CEO for over 20 years. Headquartered in Atlanta, Mailchimp has over 1,500 employees and 13 million global users. Ben co-founded Mailchimp with Dan Kurzius in 2001, and the company remained privately held until 2021, when it was acquired by Intuit for $12 billion. Together, Intuit and Mailchimp will provide an AI-driven, end-to-end customer growth platform to help small and mid-market businesses to prosper.

Mailchimp was named the 2017 Company of the Year by Inc. Magazine, recognized as one of the world’s Most Innovative Companies and a Brand That Matters by Fast Company, and listed on the Forbes Cloud 100 for 6 straight years. Ben is a dedicated leader whose mantra for employees is “listen hard, change fast.” He has a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Georgia Tech and was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2016.

Dan Kurzius co-founded Mailchimp with Ben Chestnut in 2001. He was a developer who also served as the company’s first support agent. He built Mailchimp’s support department and continues to advocate for our users through research efforts in partnership with the data science, product, and marketing teams. When he’s not on the road visiting customers, Dan also focuses on the workplace and corporate citizenship efforts at Mailchimp. In a past life, Dan was a DJ and sponsored skateboarder.