Rapunzl Names Co-Founder Myles Gage Chief Executive Officer; Brian Curcio Moves to an Advisory Role and Remains on the Board

CHICAGO, Sept. 1, 2026 — Rapunzl, the Chicago-born financial literacy platform that has reached more than 150,000 students since 2018, today named co-founder Myles Gage Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Co-founder Brian Curcio, who has led the company as CEO, is moving to an advisory role and will remain on Rapunzl's Board of Directors, where he will continue to advise on strategy.

The transition keeps Rapunzl in the hands of the two high school friends who started it, and it arrives at the busiest moment in the company's history. Rapunzl opens the 2026-27 school year with new programs in New York City and Boston, the largest platform release it has ever shipped, and a free national scholarship competition whose most recent season drew nearly 100,000 students from more than 1,000 schools.

"Myles and I have always operated as co-CEOs throughout Rapunzl's growth, so in a lot of ways this makes official what has been true from the start," said Brian Curcio, co-founder of Rapunzl. "We've been best friends since high school, and I've watched him build this company beside me every step of the way. There's no one better to lead Rapunzl in this next chapter of transforming financial education, and I'm excited to keep helping him and the team from the board."

"Brian and I started Rapunzl because we believed every student should understand how money works before they graduate, and that finance shouldn't be locked away for a few people who already know the system," said Myles Gage, CEO and co-founder of Rapunzl. "That hasn't changed. My focus is bringing what works in our Chicago classrooms to more schools, more teachers and more cities, starting with New York and Boston this year."

Two founders, one company

Gage and Curcio met as high school students in Chicago and built Rapunzl to take finance out of the ivory tower and put it in front of every student. The company ran its first program in a single Chicago high school in 2018, and local media noticed early: ABC7 Chicago featured Rapunzl in its May 2018 startup roundup, and NBC Chicago followed in 2019 with a segment titled "High School Pals Create Rapunzl App to Help Kids Learn About Investing."

Since then the two have shared the work of running the company across curriculum, product, school partnerships and fundraising. They were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 2024 Education list. Rapunzl was named a 2022 Yass Prize finalist, won the 2022 STOP Award for Transformational Education and was a 2024 Chicago Innovation Awards winner. Curcio has also made the public case for the mission, writing in Forbes in 2023 that "financial literacy has become a double-edged sword for generational wealth."

Rapunzl's new CEO

Myles Gage grew up in Bronzeville on Chicago's South Side and learned about money early: at Ariel Community Academy, financial literacy was taught starting in first grade. He attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools as a John Rogers Jr. Fellow, earned a degree in finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and worked as a credit analyst at CIBC while co-founding Rapunzl before joining the company full time in 2019.

As CEO, Gage will lead Rapunzl's day-to-day operations, its school and district partnerships, and its product roadmap. Curcio will advise on long-term strategy and growth as a member of the board.

Results from the classrooms Rapunzl was built for

Rapunzl measures what students learn with a financial literacy assessment taken before and after the program. On average, scores climb from 34% before the program to 93% after it.

Those results come from the communities Rapunzl set out to serve. Eighty-three percent of participating schools are in low- and moderate-income communities, 81% of participating students identify as students of color, and 83% of students receive free or reduced-price lunch. Rapunzl is also an approved Chicago Public Schools vendor, in the district where it built and refined its model.

Growing in New York City and Boston

This school year Rapunzl is running programs with schools and educators in New York City and Boston, carrying the model it built in Chicago to the Northeast. Teachers in both cities get the full Rapunzl program:

• A standards-aligned curriculum that scales from a three-week unit to a 28-week, year-long course, in English or Spanish.
• A real-time investment simulator in which each student manages a simulated $10,000 portfolio of stocks and crypto at live Nasdaq prices, with no real money at risk.
• An Educator Dashboard for assigning courses, tracking progress and exporting grades, with grade integration for Clever, ClassLink and Google Classroom.
• Blockchain-secured certifications that students earn through the curriculum and can show to colleges and employers.

The largest platform release in Rapunzl's history

For 2026-27, Rapunzl added an economics course, two economics games and a set of tools that move students from learning financial terms to using them:

• High School Economics. A new course aligned to the National Economic Standards, with lesson plans, activities and assessments, built around an economic indicator dashboard that covers more than 70 years of data on inflation, unemployment, the federal funds rate, the 10-year Treasury yield and the yield curve.
• Run The Fed. Students take the Fed chair's seat, set the federal funds rate through real historical scenarios and watch inflation and unemployment respond.
• Rate the Loan. Students start as a loan officer and work their way up to bank president by analyzing borrowers, pricing risk and growing a lending business.
• Rapunzl AI. An AI tutor trained on Rapunzl's full curriculum, available from any screen to verified Rapunzl students and teachers only, with guardrails that keep every conversation on financial literacy.
• FAFSA guide. A step-by-step walkthrough, in English and Spanish, that helps students create an FSA ID, check eligibility, estimate their Pell Grant and Student Aid Index range and organize their answers before submitting at StudentAid.gov. Rapunzl never files or signs the application, and students' personal information stays on their own device.
• Company research tools. Income statements, balance sheets and cash-flow data built from SEC filings, plus side-by-side performance comparisons of up to three stocks.

A scholarship competition open to every student

Rapunzl's national scholarship competition is free for students and runs each year from January to late April. Students compete with simulated portfolios, so no real money is ever traded. The most recent season drew nearly 100,000 students from more than 1,000 schools, and Rapunzl has distributed more than $300,000 in scholarships to date.

About Rapunzl

Rapunzl is a financial literacy company that gives students in grades 6–12 a standards-aligned curriculum, a real-time investment simulator and free national scholarship competitions. Founded in Chicago by Myles Gage and Brian Curcio, who were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 2024 Education list, Rapunzl has reached more than 150,000 students since 2018 and is an approved Chicago Public Schools vendor. Rapunzl was named a 2022 Yass Prize finalist, won the 2022 STOP Award for Transformational Education and was a 2024 Chicago Innovation Awards winner. Its curriculum is available in English and Spanish. Learn more at rapunzl.com.