Payal Kadakia

Payal Kadakia is an American entrepreneur best known as the founder of ClassPass, a subscription service that gives members access to fitness studios, gyms and wellness experiences. An Indian American of Gujarati heritage, she built ClassPass from a struggling early startup into one of the most widely used platforms in the connected fitness market, and she has remained a visible advocate for movement, dance and entrepreneurship.

Early life

Kadakia was raised in New Jersey in a family that emigrated from India. She trained in Indian classical and folk dance from a young age, an interest that would later shape both her personal life and her business ideas. She studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she focused on economics and operations research, graduating in the mid-2000s. After college she worked in management consulting and later in the digital strategy division of a major music company, gaining experience in corporate operations before turning to her own ventures.

Career

Alongside her early corporate roles, Kadakia founded the Sa Dance Company, a troupe dedicated to contemporary Indian dance that performed in New York and beyond. The frustration of trying to find and book dance and fitness classes inspired her to launch a startup originally called Classtivity in 2010. The company struggled in its first form as a class-search and booking tool, and Kadakia and her team pivoted the model several times. The breakthrough came with a membership product that allowed users to take classes across many different studios for a single recurring fee. Rebranded as ClassPass in 2013, the service grew quickly as it expanded into cities across the United States and internationally.

ClassPass became one of the more prominent companies in the fitness technology sector and eventually reached a valuation in the billions. Kadakia served as chief executive in the company's formative years before transitioning to the role of executive chairman, bringing in operational leadership to scale the business while she concentrated on vision, brand and culture. The company later partnered with and was acquired by Mindbody, a wellness software provider, broadening its reach among studios and consumers.

Recent work

In addition to her work in fitness technology, Kadakia has become a speaker and writer on entrepreneurship, productivity and personal fulfillment. She published a book, LifePass, that lays out a goal-setting framework drawn from her own experience building a company and balancing creative pursuits. She has continued to support dance and the arts and frequently speaks about the importance of resilience and repeated reinvention in startup life, often citing the multiple pivots that preceded ClassPass's success. Kadakia is also recognized as one of a relatively small number of women of color to have founded and led a high-growth consumer technology company, and she regularly highlights the value of representation and persistence for founders from underrepresented backgrounds.