Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A Senate investigation finds inmate abuse at the majority of federal prisons; antiabortion activists are targeting abortion pills; and the new CEO of the Honest Company tackles a challenging market environment.
Honest work The Honest Company, the personal care and consumer goods brand founded by actor Jessica Alba, went public in May 2021. Its shares popped 40% on the first day of trading, raising more than $400 million.
But the market has taken a dramatic turn since then, and today the Honest Company’s shares are trading at around $3, down 82% from their IPO price. That’s a challenging market response for the company—and it hopes a new CEO will help navigate the tough climate.
Carla Vernón, a longtime General Mills executive who for the past two years has worked as a VP overseeing the consumables category at Amazon, will be the Honest Company’s next CEO, the company announced yesterday. She takes over from CEO Nick Vlahos and will continue to work alongside Alba, who serves as chief creative officer. The share price, low as it is, rose 11% yesterday on Honest’s announcement.
“I have the foundational principles in place. I know the market is ready for us,” Alba told me yesterday. “I believe that Carla is the visionary that will be able to take us to this next stage to really stand up.”
Vernón calls herself a “CPG geek,” referring to consumer packaged goods. At General Mills, she oversaw everything from family cereals to organic products. At Amazon, she stocked Honest products on the e-commerce giant’s storefront.
Vernón pins the company’s share price on external trends. While Honest might seem a prime target for a take-private deal, Vernón says the company’s “road map continues to be the road map that we have communicated to investors.”
“The entire sector of emerging businesses that launched at that time have had external market pressures on them—externalities that are separate from the actual fundamentals or performance of the business,” she says.
Still, she has a strategy to address the challenges that are in her control.
At the moment, Honest products are in 53% of retailers and 5% of households. Vernón will aim to grow both those percentages; at General Mills, she worked for brands that were in three-quarters of U.S. households. She sees beauty as a category ripe for growth, compared with Honest’s diapers and wipes, which already have a higher market share. She plans to tap into Alba’s strengths as a voice for the brand. And she wants to explore new categories for existing Honest customers.
Vernón’s new role makes her a rare Afro-Latina CEO of a publicly traded company. “Growing up the daughter of an immigrant and a mother who was from the segregated South…gave me a tenacity to know that just because something hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean now is not the time for it to be done. And maybe I’m just the person to do it,” she says. “Being an Afro-Latina leader is about the fact that we are a combination of things. So often, we get asked to simplify ourselves to one thing. I try to champion anyone who sees themselves as more than one thing.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
Widespread abuse A new Senate investigation released Tuesday found that Federal Bureau of Prisons employees abused female inmates in at least 19 of the 29 federal prisons that held women over the past decade. The Justice Department is now considering expanding its compassionate release program to offer early release for women who are abused in prison. New York Times
Nuclear breakthrough U.S. scientists announced a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion on Tuesday; scientists were able to generate more energy from a reactor than the energy used to power the experiment for the first time in history. “Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said when announcing the news on Tuesday. Fortune
Sexist structure Prior to the mid–20th century, women outnumbered men as shareholders at several companies. But sexism against those shareholders created a corporate governance structure that valued executives over shareholder input, which persists to this day. New York Times
WFH envy The remote work revolution has stirred envy between couples where one partner works from home and the other works in an office. As women working in person come home to unfinished chores or cooking, some face brewing resentment toward their partner working remotely. Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS Politico named Beth Diaz, former Washington Post vice president of audience development and analytics, as chief data officer. A.I. technology company Metaphysic appointed Erika Coppel, former head of marketing at OnlyFans, as chief marketing officer. Virta Health promoted Lucia Guillory to chief people officer. Global advisory firm StoneTurn appointed Tiffany Lewis as partner, Dana Ball as managing director, Ksenia Ioffe as managing director, and Melissa Haley as managing director. Stock options funding platform for startup employees Equitybee appointed Susan Woodard as chief compliance officer. Hearing health company Tuned appointed Barbara Weinstein, CUNY professor and audiology expert, to its advisory board. Adtech company Moloco appointed Barbara Rogan as general counsel and corporate secretary. Quantum computing company IonQ hired Rima Alameddine as chief revenue officer and appointed Secureworks CEO Wendy Thomas to its board of directors.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Attack on pills Antiabortion activists are now targeting abortion pills. Activists filed a federal lawsuit in November requesting the medication lose Food and Drug Administration approval. While one lawyer called the lawsuit frivolous, she notes the federal judge overseeing the case, and subsequent appeals courts, are all conservative, meaning providers could lose access to prescribing abortion medication. Jezebel
Sports coverage Male athletes outnumbered female athletes in the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, 55.3% to 44.7%, respectively. But online coverage of Olympic and Paralympic female athletes outnumbered male athletes (44.8% to 32.6% for online stories, respectively). Women’s Sports Foundation
Anti-woke CEO Health tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is a rising star in right-wing politics. He’s now targeting ESG investing—commonplace at asset management giants like BlackRock and Vanguard—by founding Strive Asset Management, a Peter Thiel– and J.D. Vance–backed firm that won’t ask companies it backs to “push political agendas.” New Yorker
Rise in hate Tweets containing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including terms like “groomer,” increased following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform in October, a new report from GLAAD and Media Matters has found. The report is expected to be shared at a House Oversight Committee hearing addressing anti-LGBTQ hate on Wednesday. Bloomberg
ON MY RADAR
From heart disease to IUDs: How doctors dismiss women’s pain Washington Post
How Rosalía became pop’s most fearless superstar Rolling Stone
White Lotus didn’t care about toxic masculinity after all New York Times
PARTING WORDS
“It’s like my job is to constantly remind society that women are human beings.”
—Jessica Chastain on portraying flawed and realistic women
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