Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay Ash (born Mary Kathlyn Wagner, 1918 to 2001) was an American businesswoman and the founder of the direct sales company Mary Kay Cosmetics, now Mary Kay Inc. Born in Hot Wells, Harris County, Texas, she grew up in Houston, married at 17 and sold books door to door while her first husband served in World War II. She went to work for Stanley Home Products in 1939 and, passed over for promotion in favor of a man she had trained, retired in 1963 intending to write a book to help women in business; the book turned into a business plan for her ideal company. With a 5,000 dollar investment from her oldest son she started Mary Kay Cosmetics in Dallas that year, copying the house party model used by Stanley and Tupperware, took the company public in 1968 and made it private again in 1985. She served as chairman until 1987, when she became chairman emeritus, and was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1996. Some sources place her birth a year or two earlier than 1918.