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Spanx CEO Gives Her Employees Jaw-Dropping Gifts

Sara Blakely, the founder and CEO of Spanx, celebrated her company’s recent $1.2 billion valuation by surprising her employees with first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 in spending money. (Watch above)

500 employees received the perks, according to CBS News.

In a video posted to Blakely’s Instagram account, she tells her employees, “I’m spinning a globe because, to celebrate this moment, I have bought each one of you two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world.”

She added, “You know, 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. So, with everybody’s two first class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000.”

“When employees were asked how they’d use their gifts, their answers ran the gamut: from a honeymoon in Bora Bora and an elopement in Sweden to a South African safari,” according to NPR.

Business Insider reports:

Blakely started the company in 2000 with $5,000 she made selling fax machines door-to-door. On Wednesday, Spanx announced that the private-equity firm Blackstone would buy a majority stake in the company, a deal valuing it at $1.2 billion.

“I wrote a goal down, and I said this company will one day be worth $20 million, and everybody laughed at me,” Blakely says in the video.

Spanx, which started out by selling stretchy, body-smoothing undergarments, has grown into a gigantic brand with a wide product line and men’s offerings over the past 21 years. Kim Kardashian West launched a rival shapewear company called Skims in 2019.

“In a moment like this, I think of my mom and my grandmothers and their lack of options and all the women that came before them,” Blakely said. “This would have only been a very remote dream.”

Last week, Blakely revealed she “will remain a significant shareholder and continue to help the business fulfill its greatest potential.”