Inc. Magazine – September 2019

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44 ● INC. ● SEPTEMBER 2019 ● ● ● ● ● ●

the store. You’d go into the retail

store and the experience was hor-

rible. If you were a person of color

who walked into a retail environ-

ment back then, you were basically

segregated. I used to say the only

place in America where segregation

is legal is in the beauty aisle.

Can you explain what that looked

like, how it could happen?

First, you would walk in and you’d

be followed around the store. Your

products would be isolated over in

this corner in the back, on the bot-

tom here with poor lighting. And

then the assortment would be hor-

rible. We found that it took a black

female consumer a trip to five differ-

ent retail stores to get the products

to do her hair. It took us 16 years to

get into retail, because we didn’t

believe that that was the right way

to service our customers.

Sundial is certified as a B Corp and

as a Fair Trade company. How do

you see those movements? Are they

making a difference?

You can see the impact just by walk-

ing into a store. The isolation is

all but gone, and the messaging is

respectful and thoughtful. So there’s

real change around how you look

to serve underserved consumers.

B Corp and Fair Trade, those certifi-

cations have helped because they’ve

provided their consumer with com-

fort that this company or this brand

or this product aligns with the per-

son’s values. Consumers are more

aware today. But there’s a lot of mis-

information as well. A certifying body

allows you to take comfort in, hey,

there’s been some measurement here.

You sold the company to Unilever

in 2017. What was that process

like?

It took us about five years. We like to

think of ourselves as a mission with a

business. The mission needs to con-

tinue to be developed, but it needs

to be developed at scale, because

if we’re going to actually bring the

economic impact and inclusion into

these communities, into our supply

chain, all of these women in West

Africa, we’re going to have to find a

much bigger platform.

Was Unilever the only company

you considered selling to, or were

there lots of suitors?

There were lots of suitors, but none

that had already demonstrated the

desire and the ability to do this

right. Unilever had done Ben &

Jerry’s years before. Also, not many

companies have the sophistication

and the supply chain that Uni lever

has across the globe.

Did you at any point think

“Unilever is the problem”? I mean,

Unilever is why the market looked

like it did for so long. Did you ever

see that as a con tradiction?

Community Building

Dennis bought the assets of Essence, the pioneering magazine for African-

American women, from Time Inc. in 2018. That gave him control of the Essence

Festival, a hugely popular musical and cultural gathering. At this year’s event,

former First Lady Michelle Obama (left) was interviewed by Gayle King.

If you were a

person of color

who walked

into a retail

environment

back then, you

were basically

segregated.