Spanx underwear boss gifts all employees first class tickets and $10,000
Watch: Spanx founder surprises workers with two first class tickets to anywhere in the world
Spanx employees are currently celebrating as the company's founder has recently gifted staff two first class tickets to anywhere in the world, as well as $10,000 (approx £7262) spending money.
In order to mark Spanx being valued at $1.2 billion after investment firm Blackstone snapped up a majority stake in the company, the brand's founder, Sara Blakely, decided to share the wealth with her team.
During a party to celebrate the valuation update, she told all her employees that they would be getting two first class tickets to anywhere they wanted in the world plus $10,000 to spend while they are there.
And with more than 500 staff, this is no small gesture.
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During a staff meeting where she announced the valuation and partnership with Blackstone, the 50-year-old businesswoman asked everyone gathered at the party: "Why am I spinning the globe?"
Having thanked her employees for 21 years of success and for their hard work in an industry dominated by male-owned companies, she went on to reveal her generous gesture.
"I have bought each one of you two first class tickets to anywhere in the world," she said as the room erupted into cheers.
She continued: "If you go on a trip you might want to go out to a really nice dinner, you might want to go out to a really nice hotel, and so with everybody's two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world you are each getting $10,000."
In a now viral video shared to social media, staff members' reactions were also shown, with some cheering while others cried happy tears.
“I’m going on a honeymoon with my fiancé to Bora Bora!” one employee said.
Spanx’s $1.2 billion valuation is a world away from the company's humble beginnings when Blakely started it in 2000, kicking off with just $5,000 in savings.
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She started off by explaining that in the early days she wrote a goal down on her whiteboard for her company to one day be worth $20 million, but that people laughed at that ambitious hope.
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Speaking at the event, Blakely also said that although now is a good time for female entrepreneurs, she said there isn’t enough funding or support behind female-led enterprises.
She said that although 50% of entrepreneurs are women, only 2.3% of venture capital funding goes towards females.
Continuing to address the room she said: “This is a very big moment for each and every one of you, and I want to also toast the women that came before me and all of the women in the world who have not had this opportunity.
"So at a moment like this, I think of my mom and my grandmother and their lack of options and all the women that came before them.”
