Since launching Knix in 2013, founder and president Joanna Griffiths has changed the lives of millions of people around the globe. Her intimate apparel and activewear brand Knix, alongside her additional brands KT by Knix and MNTD, reinvented intimate hygiene globally and even transformed advertising. Today, Griffiths walks audiences through lessons learned from building one of the most successful and prolific mission-driven brands of the digital era.
Over the past decade, Griffiths has fought for representation in body diversity, paving the way for a needed shift towards inclusivity in the intimates category and in advertising more broadly. Under her leadership, Knix has championed countless important conversations related to women’s health, from fertility to the postpartum experience, from perimenopause to periods in sports. A firm believer that it is every business’s responsibility to give back to the community, Griffiths launched her Knix Fund in 2022, committing $1M in giving.
Griffiths is a champion for female entrepreneurship, stressing the importance of supporting female-founded businesses and being vocal about the stereotypes that exist around women in business today. In 2021, Griffiths made headlines for disqualifying any potential investors of Knix that questioned her ability to run a company while being a mother. She closed Knix’s $50M Series B financing just three days before giving birth to her twin daughters, on International Women’s Day, no less.
In 2022, Griffiths broke the Canadian record for the largest publicly disclosed sale of a private company by a solo female founder when Swedish health and hygiene giant Essity purchased 80% of Knix, valuing the company at $400M USD. Her long list of accolades include being named Waterstone’s Most Admired CEO, Glossy’s 2024 Founder of the Year, an AdWeek Women Trailblazer, and Canada’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2023, where she represented Canada for the Global title. Griffiths was also a guest Dragon on CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
Griffiths holds an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD, sits on the board of the Toronto International Film Festival, and holds multiple patents. She released her first book Life After Birth in 2021, and her first children’s book Some Period, in 2023.
