She Means Business

Jessica Alba has built an empire that’s become a business phenomenon. Mel Evans meets the powerhouse babe behind the brand, and learns there’s a very honest side to the dynamo.

I bet there aren’t many people you’d pick up the phone for at 3.40am. But on this particular morning, I’m making an exception – because when Jessica Alba calls, you pick up.

It’s morning in California, too, when I catch the actress entrepreneur just out of a meeting – a meeting she ducked into after dropping her daughters, Honor, 9, and Haven, 6, off at school. When we get off the phone, she’ll dart into more meetings as the founder of The Honest Company. ‘Just a typical day,’ she tells me. It still might be difficult for you to imagine the Jessica Alba our generation knows best – the kick-ass femme in Dark Angel, Sin City and Fantastic Four – fronting a company that sells safe and effective baby, personal care, home and beauty products, let alone commanding a room of middle-aged men in suits. But if her CV has taught us anything, it’s that she’s no wilting flower – on screen or at the office. And she learnt to play this game early.

‘Because I was known as someone in entertainment, it was harder for the average Joe to see me as anything but that,’ she says of the early days of The Honest Company. ‘But with people in business, the best thing you can do is show respect; the proof is in the pudding. If anyone sat down with me for 10 minutes, they’d know I get my hands dirty.’