A wedding guest’s awkward shopping trip helped Shan-Lyn Ma find the idea for Zola. Her next challenge was learning when to expand the business, and when to share the job.

From DoubleClick to MongoDB, Business Insider and Zola, Kevin Ryan has kept returning to the same question: who should build this? Inside a New York career made of new beginnings, patient recruiting and companies that outgrow their first idea.
Manika Doshi is the CEO of rePurpose Global, the New York-based plastic action platform that has pulled 100 million pounds of plastic waste out of nature across 11 countries and partnered with 500+ brands. A materials science engineer turned operator, she rose from COO to chief executive in January 2026 as the company pivots toward packaging-compliance software and Extended Producer Responsibility. Her brief: make a tangled, regulation-heavy problem simple enough that brands move from intention to action at scale.