Victoria Jackson’s professional career began as a makeup artist and for thirteen years, she cultivated a name for herself in that highly competitive field and was the ‘go to’ professional for high profile celebrity clients.
As founder and CEO of the global brand, Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, Victoria revolutionized the beauty industry with a more natural approach to makeup that championed the intrinsic beauty of every woman. She pioneered a new way to sell makeup when her cosmetics line became the first ever marketed on television. Victoria Jackson Cosmetics went on to become an international sales powerhouse, generating more than half a billion dollars in sales and serving two million loyal customers with more than 600 products. Victoria personally designed and developed all of her products – ranging from cosmetics to hair care, skincare and beyond.
A passionate activist on behalf of women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship, Victoria spent nearly twenty years as a volunteer lecturer on self-confidence, enhancing your natural beauty and forging a non-traditional path to success. She shared her message in prisons, hospitals, and youth support programs, inspiring women from all walks of life to cherish their unique beauty and contribution to the world.
In 2008, Victoria closed the book on mascara and opened the book on medicine after her beloved daughter was diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica (NMO)—a devastating, rare autoimmune disease. Little was known about this potentially fatal disorder of the central nervous system, so Victoria and her husband, Bill Guthy—of the infomercial giant Guthy-Renker, established the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation to fund life-saving research to better understand, treat, and cure NMO. Victoria has led the work of the Foundation to achieve quantum progress—and at record speed.
Today, with industry-sponsored clinical trials and funding for NMO research from the National Institutes of Health, there is real hope. Indeed, the landscape has altered so meaningfully that recent findings promise that NMO can be solved. That solution will have vast applications for treating other autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, Crohns, lupus and cancer.
Victoria Jackson has written four books – most recently publishing “The Power of Rare: A Blueprint for a Medical Revolution” (Villabella Press, 2017). She and her daughter Ali Guthy co-authored the acclaimed “Saving Each Other” (Perseus Books 2012), a chronicle of their mother-daughter journey to overcome the odds of a terrifying diagnosis. Ms. Jackson’s two previous works include “Redefining Beauty” (Warner Books, 1993) and “Make Up Your Life: Every Woman’s Guide to the Power of Makeup” (HarperCollins, 2000). She currently sits on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as the board of UCLA Health Systems. In 2017, she was inducted by renown feminist, Gloria Steinem, into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
As an in-demand lecturer and media veteran, Victoria has been featured in numerous outlets that include the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Huffington Post. She has appeared on such programs as The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Together with famed director Jesse Dylan and his team at Wondros Global films, Victoria has produced a series of documentaries about the strides being made to unravel and cure NMO and other autoimmune diseases.
Victoria is the proud mother of three children—Evan, Ali and Jackson – she and her husband Bill make their primary residence in Los Angeles.