Rachel Schneider is the founder and CEO of Canary, a groundbreaking employee relief platform that empowers organizations to offer emergency grants to employees during times of financial hardship. At the core of Canary is Grant Circle, a high-impact solution Rachel led into development after co-authoring The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty. Grant Circle provides an anonymous, employer-sponsored channel for employees to request financial aid — enabling them to recover quickly from unexpected income shocks.

Canary’s model simplifies administration: employers seed the fund and pay a service fee; grant disbursements feature IRS-compliant criteria and are routed through a nonprofit to maintain tax-advantaged and anonymous status. Through anonymized usage data, Canary provides employers insights into financial vulnerability trends — guiding strategic benefits planning without compromising employee privacy.

Before Canary, Rachel brought deep experience from Merrill Lynch, the Financial Health Network, and The Aspen Institute,serving as entrepreneur-in-residence where she combined research, policy, and practice to advance innovation in financial health. Her early commitment to using finance to solve social problems dates back to her service as a VISTA Volunteer. Today, she continues to translate that ethos into enabling financial resilience in the workplace through technology, data, and human-centered design.