Maya Smith, the CEO, co-founder, and creative director of multimillion-dollar beauty brand The Doux, talks about how her Mousse Def styling foam has exploded on TikTok with 18 million posts—and what it means for the company.

Kathy Mason founded a real estate brokerage before expanding into construction and, most recently, into agricultural spaces with a 40-acre farm and event venue

Chef Lorious shares how she secured a golden ticket at Walmart’s Open Call to get her line of wine-infused jams into the retailer’s stores in 2025

Shauna Jackson launched Lamore Lifestyle PR in 2017 and ran it for four years as a one-woman show before bringing on a team of employees

Lynnette Dodson and her husband opened a physical home for their tea business, Cuples Tea House, in 2021 in Baltimore and have since opened two more retail stores

In 2023, Zakia Blain, founder and CEO of 12-year-old body-positive lifestyle brand FBF Body, set off on an adult gap year to find the joy in entrepreneurship again

Harlem’s Fashion Row founder Brandice Daniel creates bridges between fashion designers of color and mainstream brands such as Nike, Gap, Target, Marriott, and Coca-Cola

Sisters Alisa Lawrence and Nilaja Young, along with their husbands, and with investment from their mom, bought New England Sweetwater Farm & Distillery from their cousin

Tisha Thompson spent 15 years working on other beauty brands before launching LYS Beauty, the first Black-owned clean makeup line sold at Sephora.

Career coach Octavia Goredema shares how she secured six figures of funding—despite the odds—for her AI-enabled startup, Fire Memos