During the Spring of 2024, CEW returned to the West Coast at the 2024 Visionary Awards hosted at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica. This year’s Visionary Awards honored female entrepreneurs with strategic and creative visions who have demonstrated success and leadership in the beauty industry. The Visionaries honored were from five categories: Representation, Entrepreneurship & Economic Impact, Breaking Barriers, Community & Social Impact, and Innovation & Leadership. They shared their personal and professional stories that led them to create disruptive brands and offered advice for the future leaders of the beauty industry.
BCC Members spent the afternoon helping the CEW crew set up for the event and putting together gift bags for attendees. Featured products came from Tower 28, Merit, Briogeo, Nécessaire, Raw Sugar Living, Black Girl Sunscreen, and many more.
Throughout the event, BCC members checked attendees in, guided them to respective areas, helped sponsors manage their pop-ups, and were given the opportunity to hear the keynote and honorees deliver their speeches. BCC is so grateful to have the opportunity to dive deeper into the internal functions that make beauty events special for their guests.
Honorees
Randi Christiansen
CEO and Co-Founder of Nécessaire
Randi spent 15 years at Estée Lauder, instrumental in building and scaling brands. She left to co-found Nécessaire, a brand that pays attention to wellness and health and uses business to make a positive environmental impact. Nécessaire is a steward of responsible luxury brands that view the planet as a stakeholder. By the end of this year, Nécessaire will have planted 300,000 Trees+ and supported several nonprofits fighting to defend our air, land, water, and wildlife worldwide.
Amy Liu
CEO and Founder of Tower 28
After working in the beauty industry for 15 years, Amy Liu saw white space. She created Tower 28, the first beauty brand 100% clean, vegan, and free of known skin irritants, connecting to her experiences with eczema.
Shontay Lundy
Creator and Founder of Black Girl Sunscreen
Shontay’s personal mission is to address the lack of sunscreen options for women with darker skin tones, becoming a trailblazer in the beauty industry. Since founding her brand, Black Girl Sunscreen has had groundbreaking partnerships, such as collaborating with Disney Studios and sponsoring USC’s women’s track and field. Beyond innovations in product creation, she travels the world educating women of color about the importance of sun protection.
Donda Mullis
Founder and CMO of Raw Sugar Living
Raw Sugar Living is a personal care brand that broke barriers by giving access to affordable, clean, premium products. The brand is committed to sustainability advancements, women’s leadership, and community impact by partnering with foundations focused on improving hygiene and employing women worldwide. Through her role as CMO, Donda Mullis has negotiated partnerships with the nation’s biggest retail stores and driven mass distribution across North America. Donda has been recognized for contributing to Raw Sugar Living’s philanthropic initiatives, donating millions of personal care products around the world. She has also created the braveHER Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at empowering, educating, and equipping women and girls to thrive and embrace their self-worth.
Katherine Power
Founder and Chairperson; Partner
MERIT and Versed; Greycroft
Katherine Power has founded four successful brands (Who What Wear, Versed, Avaline, MERIT) and is an entrepreneur and investor focused on building category-leading businesses. She has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Adweek’s Creative 100, and Inc.’s 20 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch lists for her approach to commerce and media.
Keynote
Nancy Twine
Founder and CEO of Briogeo Hair Care
Briogeo Hair Care pioneered the “skinification” of the hair movement, winning awards for innovation, including the most Allure Best of Beauty Awards in the hair care space. Nancy became the then-youngest black woman, at the age of 29, to launch a product line at Sephora. In 2022, Nancy sold Briogeo to The Wella Company. She is a leading expert in entrepreneurship, growth mindset, and female leadership. Nancy received the Goldman Sachs Builders + Innovators Award, Entrepreneur’s 100 Women of Impact, and Inc’s Female Founders 100.
On behalf of BCC, we thank CEW for the opportunity to work with them, and learn about the industry that brings us all together.
It was so fun to work this event! What an incredible opportunity!
The BCC members were so helpful, we could not have done the event without you all.