Jessica Alba-Actress-Philanthropist and 1.7 Billion Dollar Entrepreneur

Born on April 28, 1981, in Pomona, California, film actress Jessica Alba comes from a diverse background. Her father is Mexican-American and her mother has Danish and French roots.

Jessica Alba’s, the Honest Company, is a consumer-products start-up in Santa Monica, California, that wowed the tech community with a $1.7 billion valuation and over 500 employees.

“We hire a lot of people right out of college,” says Alba, whose current age, 34, makes her older than the office average.

Director James Cameron, a movie industry giant, gave Alba her big break in 1998 when he cast her as the lead in the short-lived TV series Dark Angel.

He isn’t shocked by Honest success: “If you went back to the day I met Jessica and told me, ‘This girl is going to build a billion-dollar company,’ I would’ve said, ‘I believe it.’ ”

Alba’s father, Mark, was in the U.S. Air Force and moved the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling in Southern California, where he started a real-estate company.

Her mother, Cathy was a sort of jack of all trades, she was the manager of a movie theater; she went to cosmetology school; she was a bartender, waitress, and then managed Alba.

Cathy began working at Honest a couple of years ago and trains retail partners as a senior brand educator.

As a child Alba suffered from asthma and allergies, that landed her in the hospital often, and instilled in her a burning desire to do something special in this world.

At the age of 12, she become a devout born-again Christian. “I was seeking my purpose, in this world. This lasted until she was 17, when, she says, she was turned off by the boundaries and labels set by fellow churchgoers.

That year, she attended an acting workshop in Vermont and “fell crazy in love with a cross ballet dancer who had a baby and was bisexual. I was like, ‘There’s just no way he’s going to hell!’ ”

Acting opened her to a new world of creative people and a community where she belonged. “I felt like, at the end of the day, God is love and everyone is human.”

 

Alba’s battle with self-worth and confidence
Alba is a successful actress, businesswoman, mother, and activist, but at times she still struggles with her self-worth and confidence.

While discussing her business, The Honest Company at an event in LA, Alba revealed what she believes helped her overcome thoughts of being “undeserving” of her success.

Alba said that she “used to be, up until not too long ago, wildly uncomfortable with taking in anything good that was going on in her life’.

She described how the lack of representation of women in business likely contributed to this: “I felt so undeserving, we’re so wildly underrepresented in business, in a lot of power rooms. And when you don’t see yourself, you feel like maybe you don’t deserve to be there.”

Alba touched on how this feeling was a result of “conditioning…that we grew up with, that we have to unwind.”

So how does she overcome these feelings of low self-worth? She revealed, “that’s why I’m meditating and seeing healers.”

Alba then spoke a little about what the meditation and healers have led to, saying, “It’s been an amazing journey, and very fulfilling.

 

First Latina to do an IPO
Alba made a historic business move on May 4, 2021 by taking The Honest Company public with an IPO that values the brand at $1.44 billion, becoming the first Latina in North America to take a company public

With her husband, Cash Warren and their three children by her side, The Honest Company founder rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square to celebrate her clean lifestyle brand’s initial public offering.

The company, which trades at the Nasdaq under HSNT, raised $412.8 million in its IPO with stocks closing at $23 per share.

“I just wanted to build a brand that could stand the test of time. I knew that I wanted to have a modern, more ethical way to meet consumers’ needs.

She compared the nearly decade of work to build the company and the grit it took to take it public to pregnancy, jokingly calling it “a nine-year gestation period.” -Alba said.

 

ResortPass, backed by Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow, gives you the ability to take a daycation in luxury hotels
Have you ever looked longingly at the website of a posh hotel or resort and thought, “Man, I wish I could hang out there.”

Thanks to startup ResortPass, that might not be as out of reach as you might think.

The six-year-old company gives people the option to purchase day passes to more than 900 hotels and resorts — think Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, W Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Fairmont and Westin — around the world.

With the passes, users have access to amenities such as pools, spas and fitness centers without having to shell out the big bucks to actually stay overnight.

ResortPass currently operates mostly within the United States, in 35 states. The enterprise is backed by various investors including celebrities, Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow

 

Jessica is very much into philanthropy, supporting the following organizations:
Baby2Baby Cancer Research Institute, Children’s Defense Fund, Clothes Off Our Back, Communities in Schools, Declare Yourself, DonorsChoose.org, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Entertainment Industry Foundation, Feeding America, Global Campaign for Education, Global Poverty Project, Habitat For Humanity, International Fund For Animal Welfare, Keep A Child Alive, Kids Wish Network, Love, Our Children USA, March Of Dimes, Melanoma Research Alliance, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, National Kidney Foundation, ONE Campaign, Padres Contra el Cancer, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk For Women, Soles4Souls, SOS Children’s Villages, Stand Up To Cancer, Step Up, The Art of Elysium, The Max Love Project, The Nature Conservancy, The Rescue Train, The Samburu Project, Until There’s a Cure, US Doctors for Africa and V-Day