Background and career
Sara Blakely (born February 27, 1971) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She founded Spanx, an intimate apparel company with pants and leggings, in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2024, Blakely created the footwear brand, Sneex.
In 2012, Blakely was named in Time magazine's "Time 100" annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2014, she was listed as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.
Blakely was born on February 27, 1971, in Clearwater, Florida. She is the daughter of Ellen (née Ford), an artist, and personal injury lawyer John Blakely. She has a brother, artist Ford Blakely. She attended Clearwater High School and graduated from Florida State University with a communication degree, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.
Although Blakely planned to become an attorney, she reconsidered after scoring very poorly on the Law School Admission Test; she instead accepted a job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where she worked for three months. She also occasionally worked as a stand-up comedian during this period.
After her short stint at Disney, Blakely accepted a job with office supply company Danka, where she sold fax machines door-to-door. She was quite successful in sales and was promoted to national sales trainer at the age of 25. Forced to wear pantyhose in the hot Florida climate for her sales role, Blakely disliked the appearance of the seamed foot while wearing open-toed shoes but liked the way that the control-top model eliminated panty lines and made her body appear firmer. For her attendance at a private party, she experimented by cutting off the feet of her pantyhose while wearing them under a new pair of slacks and found that the pantyhose continuously rolled up her legs, but she also achieved the desired result.
How Sara Blakely makes money
Spanx achieved $4 million in sales in its first year and $10 million in sales in its second year. In 2015, Blakely and her husband Jesse Itzler were part of a group led by Tony Ressler that purchased the Atlanta Hawks for $850 million. Forbes estimated her net worth after the deal at $1.3 billion.
