Being a popular female celebrity comes along with its own special privileges, from wearing free clothing in the name of selling fashion brands to gracing red carpets, which scores her a point of being the most talked about personality for the moment. A disadvantage however, is not taken seriously when you decide to branch into the field of business participation, a total deviation from what you are known for.
Confirming such challenges female celebrities and women in general face in the corporate world is the ‘Fantastic Four’ star actress Jessica Alba, who opened up to a crowd of college students over the weekend at the Her Campus Media’s eight annual ‘Her Conference’ at Wanderlust Hollywood. On the ground of co-founding ‘The Honest Company’ with male partners, many assumed at the beginning that she was merely used by the male co-founders to amplify the growth of the company with her name and not as a founding member, who chipped in ideas on starting everything from scratch.
“There are very few companies that understand the value of diversity and the value of women in the workplace. Other people were assuming that my co-founder found a female celebrity to amplify his idea. And I was like, ‘No, I actually had the idea and brought you in. You turned me down, and I had to come back to you 18 months later and pitch to you again,” she told the audience.
According to the actress, in the course of running the company, she was denied many times by her male co-founders in giving jobs to fellow women who needed jobs to do and capable as well. She disclosed of the co-founder’s reason to be, “Women don’t want to work. They want kids and they just want to be moms and stay at home. And I was like, ‘Come on’.”
With all the challenges she faced at the onset of running the company, Alba has managed in the past years to transform the company from having 15 percent of the leadership team as women to 60 percent currently. An internal group referred to as ‘Women Excelling in Leadership and Living’ has being established by her with the intent of emphasizing more on who people are outside the office, which allows you to be the best person when you do come in.
The actress has also gone a long way in creating an environment where women are not punished for bearing children, by giving them four months maternity leave and two months of paternity leave for men, together with a flexible working schedule when returning. Women are also allowed to pump milk for their babies when they return to work.
Alba served as a keynote speaker at the ‘Her Conference’ along with ‘Vanderpump Rules’ actress Stassi Schroeder, YouTuber Bethany Mota and Premme plus-size clothing co-founder Gabi Gregg. ‘The Honest Company’ was founded in 2011 by the actress and Christopher Gavigan, Brian Lee and Sean Kane.
BY: Larry Adams
