Meet the Indian-origin entrepreneur behind the first billion-dollar company by a South Asian woman

Payal Kadakia is an Indian-American entrepreneur renowned for founding ClassPass, the first billion-dollar company established by a South Asian woman.

Published on: Mar 5, 2025, 15:52:22 IST

By Sanya Jain

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Forbes has released a list honouring South Asian women who are reshaping business and culture in America and using their influence to drive positive change. Among the more famous celebrities on the list (think Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra and Chanel CEO Leena Nair) is a name that may not be immediately familiar to many readers - Payal Kadakia.

Meet Payal Kadakia, the woman behind ClassPass.

Despite her relative obscurity – she does not even have a full-fledged Wikipedia page – Payal Kadakia has tasted the kind of success that most startup founders can only dream of. According to Forbes, her company, ClassPass, was the first billion-dollar company by a South Asian woman.

Here is all you need to know about Payal Kadakia and her journey:

Payal Kadakia is an Indian-American entrepreneur renowned for founding ClassPass, the first billion-dollar company established by a South Asian woman.

ClassPass is a monthly subscription service that provides users with access to a vast network of fitness studios, gyms, salons, and spas worldwide.

Born in Randolph, New Jersey, to Indian immigrant parents who were both chemists, Kadakia was raised in a family that valued education and cultural heritage.

She is a trained dancer who began learning traditional Indian dance at the age of three. Dance is a passion that she continues to pursue and, in fact, the hobby that led to her successful entrepreneurial journey.

According to CSQ, the idea for ClassPass came to Kadakia in 2011, when she was struggling to find a dance class after work while living in New York City.

Besides being the founder of ClassPass, she is also the founder and artistic director of The Sa Dance Company, through which she aims to promote Indian dance forms.

Kadakia holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She graduated in management science with a focus on operations research and a minor in economics in 2005.

According to Wired, before she built her fitness empire with ClassPass, Payal Kadakia worked at Bain & Company and Warner Music Group.

She is married to lawyer Nick Pujji. The couple tied the knot in 2016.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

Entrepreneur

Discover the latest Trending News, viral videos, social media stories and unusual events from India and around the world. Stay updated with the topics everyone is talking about.