Actress-turned-entrepreneur Jessica Alba founded her clean lifestyle and wonder brand, The Honest Company, in 2012. In 2021, the corporate went public, making it certainly one of only seven female-led IPOs on the U.S. stock market that yr. 

Since founding Honest, Alba has gleaned much about navigating the business world, and much more about herself — each as an entrepreneur, and a human being, Alba told Jenny B. Tremendous, WWD’s executive editor, beauty, on the Women in Power conference hosted by WWD, Beauty Inc and Footwear News in September.

“I’m at all times evolving, changing and learning,” Alba said. “[Honest] is simply 10 or 11 years old; if you’ve kids, consider a 10-year-old kid — they don’t know anything. So, in the event you consider that in a business sense, that’s where I give myself grace for not having all of it buttoned up, and never having all of the answers.”

Alba’s willingness to learn along the way in which, even when it has meant persisting through discomfort at times, is certainly one of the important thing aspects that has guided her to success. 

Like many ladies and members of marginalized communities, Alba has wrangled with imposter syndrome and self doubt in each her personal and skilled life. 

“I used to be wildly insecure after I began my company. I used to be wildly insecure as an actress, and I used to be wildly insecure as an adolescent,” she said, noting that the chance to step into someone else’s shoes, even temporarily, was certainly one of the points of acting that first drew her toward the profession. 

Today, nevertheless, Alba stands tall in her own identity, armed with an embrace of her strengths — even those she formerly regarded as disadvantages. 

“Early on, I leaned into my masculine [energy]. That was how I used to be taught, and the way I learned to survive,” the founder said. “That served me well for a very long time, but at the top, it just felt exhausting — I used to be drained. It’s so hard to attempt to be the most important dude within the room, in a room of dudes, each time.” 

She continued: “I felt like at 30, I ended giving f–ks, but at 41, it was really like, ‘OK, enough, now I’m going to embrace my feminine power,” and as a substitute of it being something that I feel like I should be ashamed of, or hide or dim, [I realized] it’s actually the thing that makes us, us.”  

It is that this return to authenticity that has allowed Alba to flourish, and empowered her to encourage women to do the identical. 

“In a weird way, when people don’t consider in me, or don’t feel like I’m going to turn out to be anything or they wish to put me in a box, it almost is fuel to my fire,” Alba said. “You have got to have that innate sense of self — no matter your upbringing, no matter your life circumstances. And the more you lean into your intuition, and the more you lean into the quiet spaces of your heart, the more you could find that fireside.” 

At Honest, greater than 60 percent of leadership roles, director and above, are occupied by women, a rate far above the industry average. 

Considering motherhood was the impetus that led Alba to found Honest, one prevailing misconception the founder seeks to dismantle is the concept that once women turn out to be moms, they’re consequently less interested and invested of their careers.  

“The primary guys that I began the corporate with kept saying there aren’t any women who wish to work once they have kids,” Alba said. “There’s something about having kids that made me wish to work even harder, and with more purpose. Mothers are probably the most efficient staff; they’ll multitask, and the work is just so buttoned up and clean.” 

Alba believes it’s high time women demand greater than only a seat on the table.

 “Can we just make more room for ladies? Why does it should be one? If there are 10 seats on the table, can’t it’s five? We make up 50 percent — let’s allow for five women to be there,” she said.