KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 — To celebrate the company’s new valuation, the founder and chief executive of shapewear company Spanx gave her employees two first class air tickets and US$10,000 (RM41,480) each.

Sara Blakely made the announcement at a party recently to celebrate the company’s new US$1.2 billion (RM4.98 billion) valuation after investment company Blackstone purchased a majority stake in Spanx.

Referring to a post on her Instagram, The Guardian reported the 50-year-old as saying:

"To stand here today, and [to] think about what we’ve been able to create and what we’ve been able to do by being authentic and kind and delivering amazing products to women to use their very feminine principles in a very masculine space which is business, leading with intuition, vulnerability … this marks a moment for female entrepreneurs.”

The portal added that when Blakely started Spanx in 2000 with just US$5,000 (RM20,740) in savings, she pledged that her company would one day be worth US$20 million (RM82.96 million). 

Before revealing that she had bought each of her employees two first-class plane tickets to anywhere in the world, Blakely had given the globe a spin.

"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, and so... you are each getting US$10,000,” she added.

She went on to say that even though 50 per cent of entrepreneurs are women, she said, only 2.3 per cent of venture capital funding went to women in 2020.

"This is a very big moment for each and every one of you,” Blakely said, "and I want to toast the women that came before me and all of the women in the world who have not had this opportunity.”

She also urged more support for female-led business.