For our very first episode of Work & Wonder, we sat down with someone we get to work with every day: our own Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce President & CEO, Monika Zuluaga. Monika stepped into the role in September 2025, but her story starts much earlier — growing up in Pawtucket as the daughter of Fijian immigrants, watching her father build an auto body shop from nothing, and eventually finding her way through corporate finance, hospitality, advocacy, and nonprofit leadership before landing at the helm of the Chamber.

In this conversation, Monika opens up about being the Chamber's first Asian Pacific Islander president, the grief and reinvention that followed her father's passing, and how that loss led her to open her own wellness studio, Paanee Wellness, just months before becoming CEO. She talks candidly about ditching the idea of "work-life balance" for something more honest, redefining partnership in her marriage, and what she hopes her three daughters take away from watching her build a career on her own terms.

It's a conversation about saying yes to discomfort, giving yourself grace, and figuring out what leadership looks like when you write your own rules.

Work & Wonder is a production of the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, sponsored by Coastal1 Credit Union.