Payal Kadakia is an American entrepreneur, dancer, and author. She was born February 2, 1983, in Randolph, New Jersey, to immigrant parents from India. Payal Kadakia studied Indian classical dance from a young age. She went on to attend MIT, where she studied operations research. While there, she founded MIT Chamak, the university’s first Indian dance company.
Before founding ClassPass, Kadakia worked in consulting at Bain & Company and later in digital strategy at Warner Music Group. She often struggled to find and book a dance class after work. That frustration led her to launch Classivity in 2010, which evolved into ClassPass in 2013. Payal Kadakia served as CEO until 2017. She then transitioned to executive chairman to focus more on the company’s creative direction.
Under her leadership, ClassPass grew into a fitness-tech unicorn before its acquisition by Mindbody in 2021. Payal Kadakia is also the founder and artistic director of The Sa Dance Company. This organization promotes Indian dance and cultural identity through performance. In 2022, she published her first book, LifePass: Drop Your Limits, Rise to Your Potential. Read more about her company on the ClassPass page. She continues to describe herself not as a typical entrepreneur, but as “a problem solver.”