Even in high school, Elizabeth Jackson had the making of an entrepreneur. Back then, she would hustle for babysitting jobs and run the breakfast for her church. It continued at Princeton University, where she not only worked as a math tutor and waitress, but managed to land summer internships at the White House, the Embassy of Bolivia, Ford Motor Co. and Bain & Co. in Paris.
And it continued after she received her MBA at age 22 from the prestigious business school INSEAD in Paris, when she cut her teeth branding products for Procter & Gamble and Campbell Soup.
Today, the 38-year-old mother of three is the owner of Sedna Marketing Partners, a firm with clients including Procter & Gamble, Dunkin’ Brands, Gillette and Avon Products.
Jackson struck out her own after a stint as a vice president at The First Years, an Avon, Mass. company that developed baby monitors, gates and thermometers. When the company was acquired in 2004, Jackson decided to start her own company.
The paint on the walls of her attic office hadn’t dried yet when she received her first client via a word-of-mouth reference. That client led to another, short-term projects led to long-term engagements. Before long, Sedna was working to market products for high-profile companies.
Jackson was awarded Procter & Gamble’s Innovation Award in 2007. Beyond accolades, Sedna has also been financially successful, grossing more than $500,000 in revenue in 2008.
“The way I can tell I do good work for my clients is that they call me back to do more,” Jackson wrote in her 40 Under Forty application.
Probably most indicative of her sky-is-the-limit philosophy is her company’s name. Discovered in 2003, Sedna is a planetoid that is the farthest object to orbit the sun.
“It represented to [me] the fact that there are no boundaries in what one can achieve,” Jackson said. •
