Hello! Magazine
When self-made entrepreneur Joanna Jensen invites HELLO! into her country home, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, she is a whirlwind of energy.
“I’m a morning person; when I’m up, I’m up,” says the Childs Farm skincare founder in our exclusive interview and photoshoot. “I’ll do a load of emails, then exercise. My poison is Reformer Pilates classes and running.” The house that she shares with her husband Jonathan Patrick and her daughters Emilia, 18, and Isabella, 16, is bursting with colour. “It’s a real statement of me,” says Joanna, whose vibrant character also inspired Childs Farm’s rainbowhued bottles.
The 55-year-old created her natural skincare brand for children in 2010 to help soothe her elder daughter’s eczema. She had no idea that it would become the UK’s leading children’s toiletries brand or that she would meet the Princess Royal during her career.
“I’ve been very lucky to have met her on a few occasions,” she reveals of Princess Anne, who is president of Riding for the Disabled, a charity that Childs Farm supports. “She’s the most incredibly hard-working woman; she’s so knowledgeable.” Joanna’s brand began with the influence of her mother, then an NHS nurse and a “bit of a hippy”, according to her daughter.
“We were brought up with natural treatments,” Joanna says. “I had asthma and eczema as a child; I had a puffer for my asthma, but the majority of my treatment was done at the homeopath. It was all about using the most basic forms of skin treatment you could find, and that was ingrained in me.”
Her business acumen developed in childhood. “My grandparents had an antiques shop, and when I was about 12, I made about 15 pigs from clay and sold them in the shop. They all went on day one,” she says.
“It was in my DNA that if you want something, you work for it and get it, and if you come up with an idea, you just do it.”
WORKING HER WAY UP
Joanna set up her first business in interior design. A career in finance followed, beginning with a job in Hong Kong. “I started right at the bottom as a junior back-office lackey and delivered everything people asked of me, on time, in full and with a smile. I progressed quickly,” she says.
From there, she moved into investment banking in London. “It taught me about hard work. I would be at my desk at 6.30am every morning and I’d leave at 6.30pm every night. You didn’t finish until the job was done.
“My attitude has always been that if someone says: ‘Can I have it by the end of the week?’ you get it to them by the end of the day.”
Joanna left the banking world and founded Childs Farm aged 40, after the birth of her first daughter, whom she affectionately calls Mimi. “She popped out with terrible eczema in all the cracks of her arms and legs,” she says.
Her second child, Isabella, also had sensitive skin. “I did a lot of research into eczema, but nothing had changed since the 1970s,” Joanna recalls. “It was reactive, not proactive. So I started concocting some stuff at home.”
A friend put Joanna in touch with a manufacturer, and soon she was trying out samples. Isabella, who normally couldn’t wash her hair without screaming, happily reported: “It’s not ‘owie’, Mummy,” when she was first bathed using a Childs Farm body wash.
In 2012, six of the brand’s products hit the shelves of independent shops before going nationwide in 2014, eventually being stocked by Boots and Waitrose. With joyful scents such as rhubarb and custard, they struck a chord.
“We just wanted to make bath time fun, even for children who’ve got poorly skin,” says Joanna, who received letters from parents thanking her for curing their children’s sensitive skin, and praise from adults, too.
She recalls listening to an emotional voicemail from a crying woman. “She said: ‘I’ve worn a skirt for the first time in 20 years.’ The whole office was in tears. We were making a real difference.”
SURVIVING TOUGH TIMES
In 2019, Childs Farm’s turnover reached £17m. But as her company skyrocketed, her home life posed its own challenges. In 2014, she and her first husband divorced and she was almost made homeless.
Being a single mother during the formative years of her business was hard. “I had no balance. I worked every hour that God sent. I spent 50% of my income on childcare and the rest on food. Whatever time I had, I would spend with my girls,” she says.
In 2022, after the “tough” experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, Joanna sold 92% of the business to British manufacturer PZ Cussons for £36.8m. It was the right choice.
My girls were in their teens and they needed me a lot more,” she says. “My mum, very sadly, has vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s, and needed me more.”
However, adjusting to a slower pace of life was a challenge. “I was fine initially, because you’re on that massive high,” she says. “You don’t realise what you’ve done. Then, as the months progressed, I felt: ‘What’s my purpose?’”
Her next step was to support femalefounded businesses. Joanna has invested in 13, including biscuit company Biscuiteers, and is an advisor to Buy Women Built, which promotes brands created by women.
She is chair of both the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association and the British Paralympic Association’s philanthropic arm, The Parallel Club, and is soon to publish her first book, in which she shares the knowhow behind her financial success.
FRESH START
“I’m more relaxed now than I have been in years,” she smiles as she relaxes in the home she has built with Jonathan, whom she met in 2016.
“I feel as though I’ve started a new chapter. There are things that Jonathan and I want to do together, and things that I want to do with my girls. Where I am now gives me that ability, that fluidity.”
INTERVIEW: SOPHIE HAMILTON
Joanna’s book Making Business Child’s Play: How to Build a Winning Brand is available to pre-order now, published by Kogan Page on 3 September, priced £14.99.