At Chptr, we are proud to be led by people who bring both vision and a deep respect for service to their work.
One of them is Rehan Choudhry, our Founder and CEO, whose career has always centered on storytelling, community, and the moments that bring people together.
Before founding Chptr, Rehan built and led large-scale entertainment and media experiences, including the nationally recognized Life Is Beautiful festival. His work focused on creating meaningful shared experiences at scale. Over time, he began to see that one of life’s most significant moments, how we honor and announce a passing, had not evolved with the way communities now connect.
Obituaries were moving away from trusted local institutions. Families were relying on fragmented digital platforms. Funeral homes were losing visibility in the very communities they serve.
He believed there was a better way.
Chptr was founded on a clear principle: restore dignity, expand community reach, and ensure technology strengthens funeral homes rather than replacing their role.
“Our loyalty lies solely with the funeral director and the families they serve. We have built every aspect of our business around one main question – Does this help or hurt the funeral home? I believe you have to pick a side and own it. We’ve chosen the path of standing shoulder to shoulder with the profession, no divided interests, no compromises.”
-Rehan Choudhry, Founder & CEO of Chptr
How does technology like Chptr help funeral directors better serve the families in their care?
Funeral home owners deserve to be in full control of their business, their brand, their marketing, and their relationship with the families they serve.
For too long, obituaries have been siphoned off by aggregators and third parties that monetize grief through ads, data resale, upsells, and paywalls. We’ve helped funeral homes take that ownership back.
Chptr does not monetize the obituary or the family. We don’t sell flowers. We don’t sell ads against obituaries. We don’t sell data. Period.
Technology should empower owners , not create more work for their directors. It should remove friction, increase visibility, and strengthen the funeral home’s relationship with its community.
That’s exactly what Chptr does. We return control to the funeral home, extend their reach through broadcast and media partnerships, and do it without adding operational burden.
What key lessons from your past entrepreneurial experience have shaped your leadership at Chptr?
I’ve always gravitated toward building platforms that enable and elevate communities, especially when that community is misunderstood or underrepresented.
There’s a real disconnect in society between how funeral directors are perceived and the actual impact they have. They are some of the most important first responders in our communities. When tragedy strikes at 3 a.m., you’ll see police, EMTs, and a funeral director. Yet their role is often invisible.
That disconnect, combined with the misuse and commercialization of obituaries by third parties, is what drove us to build Chptr.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in business is simple: solve real problems for real people. If you stay relentlessly focused on serving them well, growth follows.
We hold funeral directors in the highest regard. We are in service to them. Full stop.
What has surprised you most since working with funeral directors?
The sheer number of unnecessary distractions they face.
Hours spent assembling last-minute slideshows. Wrestling with outdated software. Managing fragmented systems that don’t talk to each other. These inefficiencies quietly pull time and energy away from their core mission, serving families and growing the pre-need side of their business.
This new era shouldn’t just be about innovation for innovation’s sake. It should be about building efficient support systems that give time back to the funeral director. When you remove friction, you restore focus , and that focus belongs with families.
What do you admire most about the work that funeral directors do?
They are selfless servants of their communities.
A single funeral director may walk alongside a family through three generations of loss. That’s not transactional work, that’s generational trust. It takes resilience, empathy, emotional intelligence, and strength that most people never see.
My sister is an emergency room physician, and watching what she carries every day gives me perspective. The similarities between ER physicians and funeral directors are striking: both meet families in their most vulnerable moments. Both serve without fanfare. Both shoulder emotional weight quietly.
That level of service deserves respect, and support.
Can you share one major insight from your time in this industry so far?
Service is everything.
You can build the most advanced technology in the world, but if you don’t understand what’s happening on the ground, in arrangement rooms, during removals, in aftercare conversations, you’ll miss the mark.
At Chptr, we are service-first and technology-second. Our primary product is not software. It’s support. Technology is simply the vehicle that allows us to deliver that support at scale.
Final Thoughts
Rehan’s perspective is grounded in a simple but steady belief: service comes first. Funeral directors carry significant emotional and operational responsibility, often without recognition. He is clear that technology should never complicate that work, only support it and protect the trust funeral homes have built within their communities.
At Chptr, that philosophy shapes every decision. Technology is the vehicle, but people are the priority. We’re grateful for his leadership and proud to stand alongside the funeral directors he is committed to serving every day.
