Janis Black Warner

Driven by her natural philanthropic instincts, Janis Black Warner has dedicated her career to helping others since she was 18 when she became president of the charity organization Friends for Life. She has since built an accomplished career as a mental health advocate, a dedicated member of numerous boards, including the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, an author, and a successful business leader.

Launching her career in 1984 in the business affairs department at HBO, Ms. Warner co-founded California Feather & Down with her late husband, Jeff, in 1987, which stood as the fourth-largest down pillow manufacturer in the United States. With 450 employees and 86 stores, she innovated the body feature and down body pillow for pregnant women and people with back problems, created the first down infant comforter, travel pillows, and blankets, and developed the baby-booster nursing feeding pillow for nationwide stores and catalogs—for which she was featured in every imaginable juvenile product magazine as well as the Westside Weekly section of the Los Angeles Times. Since 2005, she has been active as the owner and president of PillowTalk Studio, a unique bath and bedding store that offers pillows, comforters, linen sets, soy candles, and handmade jewelry.

In addition, Ms. Warner has long considered her primary focus to be mental health advocacy, leading a speaker series on mental health for 10 years, and has published two books of inspiration aimed at providing people with good feelings in their hearts—which has personally gifted to Presidents Obama and Clinton, Justin Bieber, and Elton John, among hundreds of others. She is currently in the process of writing a book about mental health, which will be titled “Pain to Purpose: A Journey to Mental Health Wellness—Getting Rid of Stigma by Telling Our Stories,” through which she wants to leave the world with her inspiration. She has previously raised $450,000 for Cedar Sinai Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and greatly contributes time and effort to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles for 20 years, even helping them to build a meditation garden.

Ms. Warner, a mother of three, has recently become an interior designer and currently has eight properties she manages and leases out.