An Open Letter to University Presidents
11 min read
Jess Weiner has become the magic ingredient for some of the largest and most well-known companies worldwide.
Jess Weiner is the go-to-advisor behind some of America’s top brands like Barbie, Dove, and Warner Brothers. As one of the most powerful business strategists in the world, she redefines beauty and body image standards in order to promote self-esteem in women.
But life wasn’t always smooth sailing for Jess. She grew up in Miami in the 80’s when there was a very particular kind of beauty that was idolized. With her ethnically ambiguous looks, she didn’t fit in. She had kinky curly hair, spaces in her teeth, an olive skin tone, and a curvier body.
I knew that certain forms of beauty were more upheld than others. I was also keenly aware that I wasn’t that.
“I wasn’t lean, tall, or blonde. Looking out at culture, I knew that certain forms of beauty were more upheld than others. I was also keenly aware that I wasn’t that.”
Jess grew up in a family that placed focus and importance on appearance, which was passed on from generation to generation.
Her family partook in extreme dieting. “Both my parents were on diets. My mom was put on her first diet at five years old!” Jess’s mother tried to “help” her by perpetuating that diet-centric mentality. “I think that dieting in general, especially when young, is a gateway for disordered eating. I grew up in a family that had a dysfunctional relationship with food and body image.”
Not surprisingly, Jess developed an eating disorder. “I had a little bit of all the disorders. I would restrict. I would binge and then purge, through exercise.
“I was an average build. I thought I was heavy, but I was just curvy. My eating disorder hid in my normal body’s frame. I was struggling with food restriction, but I didn’t have an emaciated frame, so I didn't think I had a problem, and no one else did, either.”
To foster resilience, Jess reflects on the importance of fostering self-esteem. She believes the most important thing one can do to foster self-esteem is to develop and value the relationship with oneself.
“The relationship you cultivate with yourself is the most important relationship you will ever have. You must put time and patience into it. Treat yourself the way you would treat another human. Invest in your relationship with yourself.
“I do care about my appearance in a way that serves me. I also give myself permission to partake in hobbies, volunteering, and unplug time. You’re not just a body—you’re a soul, and you deserve it. Start to fall in love with that relationship.”
She stresses the Jewish concept of de-emphasizing your body as your core point of worth in order to increase self-esteem.
But self-esteem isn’t just about your relationship with yourself. Finding ways to give is just as important. Jess strives to open doors for others and give back philanthropically.
“Research at NYU showed that even by the age of six, girls saw themselves as less brilliant than boys.” Jess gives to organizations that help empower young women with the gift of education.
Internalizing these core values has led Jess to pursue her life goals.
Jess recalls her grandparents talking about the principle of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. “In my work, I am constantly questioning and curious about how to create systemic changes within large organizations in the quest for social justice and impact. I think a lot about stereotypes and how to combat them by encouraging individual accountability, and know that this starts with personal education, which is a key focus of my career.”
Because of her personal struggle with body image and disordered eating, Jess wanted to study the social aspect behind who determines what defines beauty. Who are the gatekeepers telling everyone what beauty should be? she wondered.
Jess was always fascinated by advertising growing up and loved commercials. “I didn’t see many girls like me at the center of stories.” She also noticed how ads tend to utilize our most basic insecurities to propel the consumer to buy.
“We have systems that are built to prey upon insecurities. We fuel an industry by insecurities.”
Jess made it her life’s goal to find a way to infuse ads with messages of self-esteem and to help brands better represent people, which, at the end of the day, is good for their bottom line. She walks that tightrope by creating and promoting internal education for the companies she works with.
“80% of the work is internal education for the people making the products. I spend a lot of time helping to dismantle their own biases while making them commercially viable. I find a way to marry a business imperative with social culture, and that is what I advise on. It’s working. I have seen the effort of that internal education yield better products, which yield better sales.
Even though she now helps companies such as Dove, Barbie and Warner Brothers evolve their respective brands message, her professional achievements were not a straight path to success.
When she was 26 and moved to LA, she thought she was going to be in the entertainment industry. When she was 29, she was offered a talk show deal with Warner Brothers. “So there I was, in development for a talk show alongside other names like Tyra Banks and Ellen DeGeneres. The TV execs thought I had potential, and they tried to sell my show. I loved Oprah and smart television, but they wanted to turn me into Rikki Lake and Dr. Phil. I simply didn’t have the name recognition that the others did and after three years, my deal fell away.
“I was devastated. I had worked so hard and done so many hours of TV. I was sure it would succeed, but it didn’t. Now, I look back and it all makes sense.
“I wasn’t quite prepared for the industry reality of how it treats women, especially young women. But more importantly, in an ironic twist of fate, Warner Brothers became my client, and now I’m advising them. Rejection is God’s protection.”
Jess stayed positive, staying true to her mantra that relationships are the currency of business. “If you mind and tend to relationships, doors will continue to open, and you will open doors for others.”
Her work with major companies like Dove began when Jess was mentored by Jackie Cooper, a Global Brand Officer at Edelman who did PR for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Jess was working as a playwright and had also started a non-profit organization back when she was 21 years old. She wrote plays that talked about body image and school violence. She was a social impact educator, using these plays and touring at schools.
Subsequently, Jess was a columnist for Seventeen Magazine where she wrote about body image and confidence. Jackie Cooper saw something in Jess that she thought was fresh and insightful. She was building a campaign for Dove and introduced Jess to the brand.
Jess remembers going to New York to have a meeting with Dove. She had never worked for a national brand and was quite skeptical. She wondered, Why are we going to talk about self-esteem with Dove? What she realized was that despite being in a room full of executives, they were also parents whose own children hated their bodies. They were trying to find a way to make an impact, and that’s where Jess stepped in.
Jess helped Dove create the self-esteem curriculum that has now reached over 60 million girls worldwide.
In working together with Dove, she advised them on how to talk to girls about self-confidence issues and how to talk to moms about body image. “I was the trend translator for this brand and I helped them to create the self-esteem curriculum that has now reached over 60 million girls worldwide.”
Later, her work with Dove included educating the entire staff on inclusion and promoted diversity by asking them to really look at their biases—and perhaps their subconscious standard of beauty—and revisit them with a new lens
“Our work is focused on translating cultural trends and then contextualizing them for various business teams inside of a brand—which can include reviewing content, campaign messaging, products, and doing internal workforce trainings on cultural fluency to ensure that all teams internally have the same knowledge base to work from. All of this eventually drives revenue because the work is grounded in what is happening in today's culture, it is business-forward, meaning that it is all about strengthening the brand equity and talent equity of an organization. These are necessary aspects of a successful business these days.”
Barbie contacted Jess as a consultant in 2010. There was an apparent disconnect; Barbie saw that the millennial generation was pushing back against vanity. There was backlash from their upbringing, and millennial parents were pushing back on the vanity messaging for their girls. They were anti the overly exaggerated messaging of beauty being marketed to girls. Jess recognized this and started making changes from within the company to help resolve the issue.
She used the “yes, and…” concept to open a dialogue and make changes from within.
“The ‘yes, and…’ principle is something I played with as a theatre person, but it’s actually an incredible business technique. If you and I were doing a scene and I came in and I said, ‘The sky is purple.’ And you said, ‘No, it’s not,’ the scene ends. There is nowhere to go. You have just negated everything. But if I come in and I say, ‘The sky is purple.’ And you say, ‘Yes, and it’s raining,’ the scene continues and expands and grows.
“I do the same thing when I come in to work with Disney or Mattel, or anyone for that matter! If I come in and say ‘no’ to everything they’ve done, the conversation ends. But if I come in and I say, ‘Yes, girls love pink and sparkly things, and they love science, politics, and kicking soccer balls,’ things expand.
“Boys can be into trucks and they can have emotional intelligence,” Jess explains further. “Part of the reason I like working with marketing, advertising, entertainment, and content is because they are the largest distributors of messages around the world. But audiences are becoming more sophisticated, and asking brands to question things more and more.”
Millennial parents felt that Barbie was not as diverse as she could be. In 2016, Jess helped them launched four new Barbie categories: Petit, Original, Tall, and Curvy. Now there are dozens of different body types available. Some have prosthetic limbs, others have a wheelchair, and there is even a Barbie with Down Syndrome. Their skin tones, eye colors, and eye shapes all vary. Everything has evolved with representation.
Today, instead of one or two Barbie options, a girl of any size or ethnicity can find a Barbie just like her.
Jess feels the importance of paying forward her best tips for success to others just beginning their own career, just like she was given a boost by Jackie Cooper.
“Every single success has been strewn with moments of failure. Expect to build resilience. It won’t always be smooth sailing. Tap deep into the resilience of pivoting. I’m not afraid of pivoting—I have an entrepreneur’s mindset.”
She encourages everyone to continue “doing what you love and saying yes to opportunities because more will open for you, and then you can open doors for others.”
On a personal level, Jess thinks the most important lesson is to take care of yourself, even amidst the most stressful times.
“I love work, and love all of it. I think remembering to feed the other parts of my soul which have nothing to do with financial gain is so crucial. Remember to feed all parts of yourself.
“I’m always learning, always growing. If I’m making a mistake or a pattern I’ve repeated, I’m always a work in progress. That’s my purpose here on Earth. I ran a marathon, and when I was in the last two miles and my body wanted to stop, I kept repeating the words ‘right here, right now.’ These words keep me in the present moment. I couldn’t think about the finish line—just one step at a time.”
