Our featured city of this month is New York. Check out these founders out of NYC who have also been some of our featured speakers at past City Meetups.

By Ayesha Rizvi (Editorial Intern, Women 2.0)

Payal Kadakia (Founder & CEO, Classpass)

“The number one thing we’re trying to do is create experiences.” –Founder Payal Kadakia

ClassPass is a membership program for fitness classes across multiple gyms and studios, making working out more accessible. ClassPass members enjoy greater variety and engagement in their fitness regime, all at a lower price than if they were to book classes individually on their own. Participating studios benefit by attracting new students and profitably filling excess capacity in classes.

Prior to founding Classpass, Payal worked as a consultant at Bain & Company and in Warner Music Group’s Digital Strategy and Business Development Group. She holds a degree from MIT in Operations Research and Economics.

Frida Polli (Co-founder & CEO, Pymetrics)

Pymetrics offers a multi-stage software platform for human capital management by using neuroscience-based software tools. Through their neuroscience-based software tools, Pymetrics strives to make career assessment and development more scientific so as to improve outcomes for both job candidates as well as companies.

First an award-winning neuroscientist, founder Frida Polli went to business school to develop commercial applications for neuroscience assessment and analytics. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a PhD from Suffolk University and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Pooja Badlani (Co-founder & CCO, Rank & Style)

Rank & Style simplifies shopping by bringing customers unbiased, data-driven Top Ten lists of the best fashion and beauty products. These Top Ten lists are created utilizing an algorithm that methodically researches and aggregates relevant data like user reviews, bestseller lists and so forth from the boutiques or fashion blogs the customer follows.

With eight years of design and technology experience, founder Pooja Badlani has been an Art Director at Time. Inc. and a senior designer at Sundance Channel. She teaches web design at Pratt Institute in New York City and holds degrees from Barnard College, Columbia University and Pratt Institute.

Kate Kendall (Co-founder & CEO, Cloudpeeps)

Cloudpeeps is an online marketplace that connects businesses with remote community managers. It helps those who want to build a community around their product or service but might not have the time or resources to do so.

Born in England, grew up in Australia and a current resident of New York City, founder Kate Kendall first started out as a business journalist. She also founded theFetch.com before Cloudpeeps.  She holds a Bachelor of Science from The University of Melbourne in biotechnology and microbiology, and Masters of Business (Marketing) at RMIT University.