Sara Blakely, Founder & CEO of Spanx, has chosen to celebrate the shapewear company’s partnership deal with private equity giant Blackstone in spectacularly generous fashion: gifting her employees two First Class plane tickets with Delta Airlines to travel anywhere in the world along with $10,000 in cash to spend however they please.
“This is a very big moment for each and every one of you,” Blakely, part-owner of NBA team the Atlanta Hawks, can be heard announcing in a video posted on her Instagram account.
“When I first started Spanx, I wrote a goal down and I said this company will one day be worth $20 million dollars and everybody laughed at me and you know, I said I really believe that.”
“To stand here today and think about what we’ve been able to create and what we’ve been able to do by being authentic and kind and delivering amazing products to women to use their very feminine principles in a very masculine space which is business, leading with intuition, vulnerability… This marks a moment for female entrepreneurs.”
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During her 20s, Sara Blakely bootstrapped Spanx using her life savings of $5,000 in the year 2000. With the acquisition of a majority stake in the company behind the revolutionary foundation garments, Spanx has a revised valuation of $1.2 billion, effectively pushing its founding CEO’s net worth back over the billion-dollar mark. According to Forbes, Blakely will retain a significant shareholder – which could mean a position as high as 49% – as well as continuing to oversee operations as executive chair.
“With all my heart I love this brand. With all my heart I will continue to love this brand,” adds Blakely.
“I really want every employee to celebrate this moment in their own way and create a memory that will last them a lifetime. Cheers to 21 years of magic and many more to come.”
Sources indicate Spanx currently has approximately 750 employees, bringing the total cost of Sara Blakely’s reward (easily) in excess of $10 million. Although it’s unclear whether every single employee will receive First Class plane tickets and a cheeky stack, right down to the janitor.
A moment of silence for the operators whose bosses don’t even know their name.
[Note: all $$$ referenced in USD.]
