2025

Joy Mangano

Founder & CEO, CleanBoss

“I think the best piece of advice is to be courageous and continue doing what you do and believing in yourself.”

What do you feel are the qualities of a person with Power?

A person with power. It’s an interesting definition. Right? Of power. The first thing that I think of is that they have to be powerful within. They have to be courageous within. And they have to have defined their journey and mission in life and lived by that. And on the other side of that is empathy. I do believe that you have to really feel for people and know the people that you are impacting and dealing with in order to be able to grow whatever you are doing in business or in your personal life.

When we talk about divisive issues that we have in the world right now, there’s everything from gun violence to gender equality to child poverty. What do you feel is the most pressing?

For me personally, when we talk about all the things we’d like to change, an impact in the world. Children come to my mind first and foremost, always. I’m an inventor. I create products. So when I am experiencing something, when I go to a school to talk it always reminds me how bright these young minds are, how open they are to learning, to growing. And so for me, if you’re going to start anywhere in the world, you start with these beautiful young minds and really help them navigate and understand themselves and the world around them. And that would be my first place.

Do you feel that sometimes it’s almost like the 60s playing themselves out when the 60s were rebels with no causes? They were kids who were just fighting for freedom and just freedom of speech, freedom of liberty, freedom of just having choice. But in an AI way today, right?

Yes. Today they have to navigate many, many different things and understand them. I mean, it’s really so advanced, right? When I was a young rebel, there were no cell phones. There was Woodstock and music. There’s a much more intellectual focus, therefore, probably more now with different kinds of pressure on young adults. But that’s where we come in. We want you to be able to help them navigate. I certainly spend a lot of time doing that.

Did you ever feel there was a time in your life when you had to navigate or encounter a difficult challenge that you had to overcome?

In my life, overcoming challenges is a daily routine. But yes. As a child I was almost acting like parents to my parents, right? I was always very grown up, and I really didn’t know that I was a creator, inventor. It wasn’t clearly defined. I was just like blowing up toasters and doing things, and they would be like, What’s wrong with Joy?

I went to college and I studied business, got married. I was Italian. So my parents, my grandparents, you get married, you have children, and you cook. And I naturally knew that was not my whole routine in life. As an adult I really didn’t understand and validate who I was until the success of the Miracle, my first invention, that I actually was able to sell. Finally at 30 something, I realized this is what I do and this is what I’ve done all along.

It was a challenge, all the time, for me as a person to really know who I was. I can really, honestly say every meeting I was ever in, I was the only female in it. Today, it’s so wonderfully different. There were many challenges to be credible in an industry as an inventor. Right. I feel if you’re in business and you work very hard, you’re always finding those barriers that you have to figure out how to get above, below, or right through.

What do you feel was the defining moment that brought you to where you are today? Was there a moment that you could talk about?

One very, very important part of my life. So you go back to a self-bringing-up. I’ve always been about cleaning. I’m a cleaning fanatic. And most of the things that I develop are about that, and making somebody’s life easier and better in many ways. And health and wellness as well. But as a young mother, I was cleaning one time and using all the kinds of things you use in a bathroom to clean the bathroom. And all of a sudden, I was breathing in the fumes, and I couldn’t taste or smell, and I was petrified. So I walked outside, and for about two hours it took me to get back my sense of smell and taste. And it was at that moment that I said, I am going to figure out a way to make powerful, non-toxic cleaning products and extensions of that.

Hence why I have founded the company CleanBoss. We’re on a mission to wake up the world to a new way of clean. And you know, it’s not a self-wringing mop that I want to be my legacy. It is these natural, botanically-derived, powerful products so you can replace the toxic ones. And if you think about what’s in your cabinet and under your sink and read the labels, it is a beautiful thing to believe that households don’t have to lock their cabinets anymore for their children and their pets. We have so many furry friends, and that’s the mission we’re on, right? And why? My partner is Pitbull. His mother was a cleaning lady, and when he heard my mission, he’s like, ‘I’m in. That’s it. We’re doing it, Joy. We’re changing the world.’

If everybody just had an ounce of thought towards sustainability, it would change the dynamic of where we live.

Absolutely. I mean, my goodness gracious, I used what my mother used and what her mother used. And nobody looked at labels. Everybody just put gloves on. With the option of toxic cleaners, [non-toxic products] must be equal to or better otherwise, years ago what did you do? You tried something natural. It didn’t work. And you go back to that same old thing, right?

It’s so interesting and so exciting to know the possibilities and where this could go.

We are changing the world. Make no doubt about it.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

I think the best piece of advice is to be courageous and continue doing what you do and believing in yourself. Absolutely. Because if you stop doing something, your percent of succeeding is zero. I mean, just zero. But if you continue and you take that leap of faith, your odds are better no matter what. I’m a hard worker and I’m always working and I’m always discovering and creating. And I believe that advice to not shy away from that, because the path changes all the time along the way. But not to shy away from keeping going is the best advice I’ve ever gotten.

What do you feel is the most overrated virtue?

Oh, boy. That’s a tough one. If I have just a knee jerk reaction, is the focus sometimes on formal education? There are so many brilliant people who have contributed so many brilliant things to this world that may not have doctorates, but they’ve followed a path that led them to impacting the world in so many amazing ways. I mean, that’s just really what comes to my mind right now.

What do you feel is your biggest fear?

I don’t really fear anything, if I am to be honest. I would think my biggest fear is to stop being able to try to impact positive outcomes in life to help the world. I wake up every morning, my whole adult life, thinking about my customer. Thinking about the world out there and everything I do is to make their lives better in some way. So I would think that my fear would be that I cannot do that in my life. My dream is to never stop doing it as long as I’m here.

Who do you yell at quietly in your head?

The mind that isn’t open to bettering or making a child feel loved. We’re all out in public sometimes. And you see certain things. I was just someplace at a baseball game with my grandchildren. And there was a young man there with a woman who was a foster mother. And this child was so talented. He was the pitcher, a ten-year-old boy. And later I found out he was just basically abandoned. And this woman took him in. And you look, and you see this beautiful, beautiful boy that’s so smart, so talented. So those are the people that can impact children that way, is probably who I quietly yell at in my mind.

If you had a pet, what would it be and why?

This is an easy answer. It would be the pet that’s sitting right next to me over there, sleeping. My beautiful English golden retriever, Peach, is eight years old. I’ve been an animal lover my whole life. I thought I was going to be a veterinarian. That’s what I started college for. And I’ve had dogs my whole life. And cats. But dogs, primarily because they’re so obvious in their love. And this will be my last dog, right? God gave me the most beautiful, loving dog ever. I have eight grandchildren, and they could fall on her, and she wouldn’t do a thing. I’ve had shepherds when I grew up and so on and so forth. She [Peach] is my dream come true, especially at a time when my family is raising grandchildren from infancy, and she’s been there the whole way. Our pets are our people. I can’t love her more.