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The Honest Company (HNST) CEO Carla Vernon still remembers giving her son soap from the Jessica Alba-founded consumer products company.
“I will tell you, my kids were born before Honest was created. But when I dropped my son off at college, I made sure he had that Honest body wash in his shower,” Vernon recalled in a new episode of Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast (video above; listen in below). “I hope he still has it in the shower, but that’s a different question.”
Vernon is working double-time to clean up Honest financially. The company has seen its fair share of struggles in recent years amid tough competition in the diaper and baby products category.
Sales fell 1.9% to $371.3 million last year. The company’s net loss clocked in at $15.7 million.
Shares are down 79% in the past five years to $3.48. The company priced its May 2021 IPO at $16, valuing it at $1.44 billion. Today, its market cap stands at $391 million.
Alba remains on Honest’s board of directors.
Vernon’s career spans more than 25 years in the consumer goods sector, including a two-decade tenure at General Mills (GIS), where she scaled the natural and organic business into an industry leader, and a stint as vice president of consumables at Amazon (AMZN).
A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas, she currently serves on the boards of toymaker Hasbro (HAS) and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino.
Since taking the helm at the Honest Company in 2023, she has spearheaded the “transformation pillars” strategy, which focuses on brand maximization, margin enhancement, and exit strategies for non-core categories like apparel and certain international markets. She has also consolidated warehouse capacity.
As a show of confidence in the turnaround, Honest announced a new $25 million share repurchase program in late February 2026 — its first one.
“That was a signal that we hope lets people realize we are very confident in our increasing structural soundness, the financial and business future we have,” Vernon said. “And so our job, as always, is to do the best thing for the shareholders. And I’m very pleased at the progress this team is making on that.”
Each week, Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi fields insight-filled conversations and chats with the biggest names in business and markets on Opening Bid Unfiltered. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
