'I've Had Naysayers My Whole Life'

With a CV like Jessica Alba’s, the actress could have comfortably retired aged 30. But, instead, she took a risk and started her own business. And boy, has it paid off…

- Mel Evans

There aren’t many people I would pick up the phone to in the middle of the night – if any. But today I’m making an exception because when Jessica Alba calls, you pick up. It’s afternoon over in California when I catch the actress and entrepreneur just out of a meeting. She’s been at the office since first thing this morning, after dropping her daughters, Honor, eight, and Haven, five, off to school. And when we get off the phone she will dart into many more meetings as the founder of The Honest Company. “Just a typical day,” she tells me, nonchalantly.

It might be hard to imagine the Jessica Alba we know best – the tough female lead in Dark Angel, Sin City and Fantastic Four – fronting a company that sells safe and effective baby, personal and home care, and now beauty products. Let alone commanding a packed room of middle-aged men in suits. But if her past CV has taught us anything, it’s that she’s no wilting flower – both on screen and in the office.

And she learned to play this game early. “Because I was well 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 from a business perspective, 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.

Since launching The Honest Company in 2012, Jessica, 36, has turned the ‘unicorn’ start-up (a Silicon Valley term for the holy grail of new companies valued at more than £800 million) into a business empire. That’s alongside a thriving acting career and a young family with her husband, Hollywood producer Cash Warren.