Who is richelieu dennis

As the company and its distribution volume grew, Richelieu remained committed to giving back to the community every step of the way. In , Sundial Brands was acquired by Unilever. In spite of his success, Richelieu knew he had more to learn. If you're not growing, you're dying," Richelieu said. The nine-week program provided a valuable lesson—that is, to step back and take a look at the field. While the company's growth has been remarkable, Richelieu's goal remains to the same: Move Sundial forward while simultaneously lifting up the community.

We want to help other entrepreneurs and companies, especially those from the black community, get to where we are today. View Frequently Asked Questions. Back to Top Arrow up. HBS Home. We need to create those environments in these communities. It's not like these women grow up and the guy next door is the manager of the bank and the other guy next door is, you know, running the SBA.

I want to know about buying Essence. Many would say that the worst thing you could do right now is get into media. You obviously have a different view. I don't see Essence as a media company. Most media companies have an audience. Essence doesn't have an audience.

Essence has a community. Those are two very different things. When I see Essence , I see the largest community of black women in the world. That, for me, is the holy grail. So now we're building a business to serve that community--not to serve the audiences that make up that community. Last year, the Essence Festival had somewhere close to , attendees. Name some leaders in America you admire--in business or in politics or in entertainment?

Warren Buffett, who is probably a favorite of everybody's. My mother has shown me what it means to have stick-to-itiveness. Another person I truly admire is Ben Horowitz, the way that he's embraced culture and used it as a teaching tool. I was there this Christmas. I went back to visit my father's grave. We have a school there called Todee Mission that we support. I think it will be. It's been very successful in Ghana.

Our community commerce model is that 10 percent goes back into the supply chain, to the women at the bottom of the pyramid, so that they participate at the bottom and they also participate at the top.

As Liberia gets more stable, I think it can happen. We're gonna find out, because we're definitely going to try to make it. Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the model of car used for Sundial Brands' initial deliveries.

It was a Toyota Previa, not a Toyota Prius. Top Stories. Top Videos. Wayne Lawrence. Did you think, "I've gotta get the hell out of here"? So did Sundial start while you were an undergraduate? And then your mother moved to the U. What made you think you could make that transition? Can you explain what that looked like, how it could happen? You sold the company to Unilever in What was that process like? The mission needs to continue to be developed, but it needs to be developed at scale.

Based on the feedback and requests we receive, as well as our own research and knowledge of efficacious and culturally-authentic natural ingredients, my sister our Chief Innovation Officer and I work together to determine how to bring it to life. Those conversations or shall I say debates! As leadership, we never hesitated to immediately own what happened. Most importantly, we set out to restore trust.

A critical lesson we learned from that situation is that we have to make sure all of our employees, particularly our new hires, have a full immersion in our culture. So we are experiencing both the opportunities and challenges that come with that growth and are applying our learnings from each to ensure we continually get better. Ultimately, I can say it has made us better.

Following that incident, I and other members of my leadership team went on a multi-city listening tour with rooms of anywhere from 25 to Black women at a time sharing not just their feelings about the ad, but also about their lives, their communities and their needs beyond the beauty aisle. So, we set out to help provide a solution, beginning with tackling some of the issues many Black women entrepreneurs have around access, capital, expertise and other resources to help grow and sustain their businesses, and thus strengthen their families and communities.

Everybody and all the time! Trust me, it takes a village! In addition, he founded the New Voices Foundation to provide support services for women of color entrepreneurs to achieve their vision through leadership development, skills-building, networking opportunities, and other innovative leadership initiatives.

Upon stepping down from his roles as Sundial chair and CEO, Richelieu created the Social Mission Board, partnering with Sundial and Unilever to scale Community Commerce across the global organization, as well as provide insights, strategy and learnings across Unilever.