Sara Blakely Biography, Family, Siblings, Husband, Kids ,and Net Worth.

Who is Sara Blakely?

Sara Treleaven Blakely is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the founder of Spanx, an American intimate clothing company with pants and leggings, started in Atlanta, Georgia. Sara was named in Time magazine’s ”Time 100” annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012. She was listed as the 93rd most powerful woman on the globe by Forbes.

Sara Blakely Early Career

Blakely initially planned to become an attorney, however, she reconsidered it after scoring low on the Law School Admission Test. She instead took a job at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, working there for three months. During this period, she occasionally served as a stand-up comedian. After her short time at Disney, she accepted a job with the office supply company Danka, where she sold fax machines door-to-door. Sara was very successful in sales and was promoted to national sales trainer at age 25.

Blakely was forced to wear pantyhose in the hot Floridian climate for her sales role, and she disliked the appearance of the seamed foot while wearing open-toed shoes. However, she liked the way that the control-top model removed panty lines and made her body appear firmer. While attending a private party, she experimented by cutting off the feet of her pantyhose while wearing them under a new pair of slacks and realized that they continuously rolled up her legs, but she achieved the desired results. She then relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, at age 27, still working at Danka, and spent the following two years and US$5,000 saving (equal to $7,500 in 2020 researching and developing her hosiery idea.

How old is Sara Blakely?

Sara Treleaven Blakely was born on February 27, 1971, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., and is aged 50 as of 2021. She shares her birthday with many famous people such as Bryton Myler, Garrett Overboe, Steven Fernandez, Elizabeth Taylor, Adam Baldwin, Grant Show, Pand eter Andre, among others.

Sara Blakely Family

Who are Sara Blakely’s parents?

Sara Treleaven Blakely was born in Clearwater, Florida as the daughter of Ellen Blakely and John Blakely. Her mother was an artist while her father was a trial attorney.

Does Sara Blakely have siblings?

Sara was born as a daughter in a family of two children. She has one sibling, brother Ford Blakely, who is an artist.

Sara Blakely Education

Blakely joined and studied at Clearwater High School. After graduating she joined Florida State University and graduated with a communication degree. At the university, she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.

Sara Blakely Interests

Besides business, Blakely is also a philanthropist, who launched the Sara Blakely Foundation in 2006. The foundation is to help women through education and entrepreneurial training. Richard Branson was a mentor to Blakely and at the end of The Rebel Billionaire, surprised her with a US$750,000 check to begin the foundation. The foundation has funded scholarships for young women at the Community and Individual Development Association City Campus in South Africa since its launch.

Sara has also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 donating US$1 million to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. Sara was the first female billionaire to join the ”Giving Pledge,” Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s pledge in 2013. The Giving Pledge is where the world’s wealthiest people donate at least half of their wealth to charity. She also paid $162,500 at an auction in 2019 for the black pants worn by Olivia Newton-John in Grease. The proceeds from the auction assisted in Newton-John’s cancer treatment center in Melbourne, Australia. In 2020, she pledged to donate $ 5 million to assist female-run small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.

Blakely has written and created a book titled The Belly Art Project: Moms Supporting Moms, which was originally published on October 11, 2016. She is also a convert to Judaism.

Sara Blakely Husband

Presently, Sara is married to the co-founder of Marquis Jet, Jesse Itzler. The couple married at the Gasparilla Inn and Club in Boca Grande, Florida, U.S., in 2008. They had met at a Net Jet Poker Tournament and dated for one year before their engagement. Their wedding was attended by actor Matt Damon and featured a surprise performance by singer Olivia Newton-John. The couple often speaks together at conferences and events on business and lifestyle.

Sara Blakely Kids

Blakely and her wonderful husband, Itzler, have four children together. The firstborn was Lazer Blake, born in 2009, the second ones were twin boys, Lincoln and Charlie, born in June 2014, and lastly, a daughter, Tepper, born in 2016.

Sara Blakely Residence

Presently, businesswoman Blakely happily resides in Atlanta, Georgia, together with her husband and four children.

Sara Blakely Height

The American businesswoman and philanthropist have a stunning body with a standing height of 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) and a body weight of 60 kg (132 lbs).

Sara Blakely Career

Blakely drove to North Carolina, the location of most of America’s hosiery mills, to present her idea. The companies did not see the value of her idea and she was turned away by every representative as the companies were used to dealing with established companies. After two weeks home from her North Carolina trip, she received a call from a male mill operator based in Asheboro, North Carolina. He offered to support her concept after he had received strong encouragement from his three daughters. Blakely later explained in 2011 that the experience of developing her idea revealed that the manufacturing company was overseen only by men who were not using the product they produced. The creation of the initial product prototype was finished over the course of a year.

Formation of Spanx

She later returned to a patent attorney to complete her application before her submission to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The attorney agreed to help her with an amount of $750 and after the submission of the online application, she then worked on the packaging of her product. Sara used her credit card to buy the ”Spanx” trademark on the USPTO website for $150. She was able to plan a meeting with a representative of the Neiman Marcus Group, at which she changed into the product in the ladies’ restroom in the presence of the buyer to prove the benefits of her creation. Her product was sold in seven Neiman Marcus stores as a result of the meeting. They were sold at Bloomingdales, Saks, and Goodman and Bergdorf soon followed.

At around the time, she also sent a basket of products to Oprah Winfrey‘s television show, with a gift card explaining what she was attempting to develop. She initially handled all aspects of the business, consisting of marketing, logistics, and product positioning, and she preferred the location of Spanx alongside shoes in retail outlets, rather than in hosiery sections. Later her boyfriend at the time, a healthcare consultant, later quit his job and joined in the running of the nascent business. Sara was contacting friends and acquaintances, including those from her past, and asked them to seek out her products at select department stores. In exchange, she would send them a check by mail as a token of appreciation.

2000-present

Winfrey named Spanx one of her ”Favorite Things” in November 2000, leading to a significant increase in popularity and sales. The popularity and sales increase also led to Blakely’s resignation from Danka. Spanx attained $4 million in sales in its first year and $10 million in sales in its second year. Sara signed a contract with QVC, the home shopping channel in 2001. She later in 2012 landed on the cover of Forbes mag for being the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.

Blakely in October 2013, explained that her ambition is to design the world’s most comfortable high-heel shoe before retirement. She was then listed by Forbes as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world. Blakely surprised Spanx employees with 2 first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 for each employee on October 26, 2021.

Atlanta Hawks

Blakely and her husband Jesse Itzler were part of a team led by Tony Ressler that bought the Atlanta Hawks for $850 million in 2015. 

Television appearances

Sara gained second place as a competitor on The Rebel Billionaire, a reality show series. The show introduced her to Richard Branson, who later supported her in her endeavors as both an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Later she played as one of the judges on ABC’s reality TV series, American Inventor, together with Pat Croce, Peter Jones, and George Foreman. Blakely was a guest investor on various episodes in seasons 9 and 10 of Shark Tank. She additionally appeared in a very short cameo, as herself, on ”Elmsley Court,” episode 12 of Billions Season 3.

Sara Blakely’s Net Worth

Blakely is an American businesswoman and philanthropist, and founder of Spanx, an American intimate clothing company. She has nearly $40 million worth of real estate and an accumulated net worth of US$1.2 billion as of 2021.