What It’s Really Like To Work For Jessica Alba

If The Honest Company rings a bell, it’s probably because you care about having a toxin-free home, or maybe your knowledge resulted from a Jessica Alba Google search. Either way, this eco-friendly brand is becoming well-known for more than just its celebrity co-founder. Thanks to delivering stylish and sustainable products “wrapped in a passion for social goodness, tied with a bow of integrity and sprinkled with a little cheeky fun,” The Honest Company is making people rethink the products they buy.

With social goodness established as a top priority for Honest, it comes as no surprise that their social goodness director is an actual (and important!) job at the company. Yet, you may be surprised to learn just how much cheeky fun is involved in this role. We went straight to Ashley King, who holds that role at The Honest Company, to learn the ins and outs of her socially responsible career — and offer you a glimpse into her day.

6:30 a.m.: Rise and shine to feed my Great Dane (Kingsley), and grab coffee with my husband before driving to Honest headquarters in Santa Monica.

8:30 a.m.: Pay tribute to my inbox. Responding to email is a huge part of my morning routine. Some emails can be as simple as managing RSVPs for an upcoming volunteer event while other emails can be as involved and exciting as brainstorming entirely new giveback programs for new Honest product verticals.

10 a.m.: Meet with colleagues in other departments. Social goodness requires working with each department to look for areas to “make it better” so I regularly meet across teams to support different socially-responsible initiatives. This support can be in the form of time, budget, product, or facilitating connections — it always changes! For example, right now we are opening a distribution center on the east coast so I'm working with our operations team to determine our sorting/donation/recycling process for certain items in that location. I'm also working to find new non-profit partners and events to support community giving from that new facility.

1 p.m.: Lunch. I'm not productive when I am hungry, so I always stop for a quick walk to a nearby eatery for lunch. Right now, I'm craving lunch from this cool, locally-sourced cafe with a salad bar that features a variety of grains and roasted seasonal vegetables.

3 p.m.: Planning and Budgeting. The Honest Company dreams big and we want to make a difference for families everywhere, but we also must deal with the realities of being a young business with limited resources. Accordingly, I spend a lot of time tracking our social goodness budget, and planning how to optimize our future impact while still staying within our means. It's a constant balancing act!

5 p.m.: Time for story-telling. Sharing our giving story with our members is really important, so I spend time working with our social, PR, and engagement teams to craft social media campaigns, write blog posts, and to update our social goodness timeline with our current giving stats.

6:30 p.m.: Prepare for my commute home in Los Angeles traffic by picking out a NPR podcast and grabbing a kombucha for the road. Once I get home, I usually go on a long walk with my dog, watch TV with my husband, and get back to any emails that may have come in since I left the office. Shut-eye usually occurs around 10:30 p.m. and then I start over again the next day!

Head over to Career Contessa to read Ashley’s full career story.