Spanx founder surprises workers with two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world

Typically, office rewards can include £ 3 bottles of wine and boxes of cookies, but some bosses, such as the founder of Spanx, go above and beyond when handing out rewards to employees.

This week, Sara Blakely celebrated Spanx’s worth of $ 1.2 billion after investment firm Blackstone took a controlling stake in the brand.

To mark this milestone, the 50-year-old businesswoman gave all of her employees an incredibly generous treat: two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, as well as $ 10,000 in spending money.

At a staff meeting where she announced the sale and the partnership with Blackstone, she teased her employees with a joke, “Why am I spinning the globe?” as she pawed at a globe ornament.

However, the staff didn’t have to wait long.

“I bought each of you two first class tickets to anywhere in the world,” she said.

The staff clapped as she continued: “If you are going on a trip you might want to go out for a really good dinner, you might want to go out to a really nice hotel, and so with both first class tickets from everyone to anywhere in the world, you each get $ 10,000.

The video shows how staff members reacted, some applauding while others cried tears of joy.

Spanx’s $ 1.2 billion valuation is a far cry from where Blakely started in 2000, kicking off the brand with just $ 5,000 in savings.

She said that when she started her business, she wrote a goal on her whiteboard. The goal was for his business to someday be worth $ 20 million. People laughed at her, she said.

At the announcement, Blakely pulled out her old “lucky red backpack” which she took everywhere when she started Spanx in college. The bag is also the namesake of Blakely’s Red Backpack Fund, which is helping other women entrepreneurs in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Speaking at the event, Blakely also said that while the time is right for women entrepreneurs, she said there was not enough funding or support behind women-led businesses. She said that although 50 percent of entrepreneurs are women, only 2.3 percent of venture capital funds go to women.

Addressing the audience, she said: “This is a very big moment for all of you, and I also want to raise a toast to the women who came before me and to all the women in the world who haven’t. have not had this opportunity. So at a time like this, I think about my mom and my grandmother and their lack of options and all the women that came before them.