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Forbes Small Business Entrepreneurs How The “Godfather Of Black Entrepreneurs” Is Closing The Racial Wealth Gap — One Billion-Dollar Exit At A Time Eric Ryan Contributor Cereal Entrepreneurs Contributor Group Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Following Oct 3, 2023, 02:00pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Sundial founder Richelieu Dennis talks the racial wealth gap, getting turned away from a party at Essence Fest (despite owning the brand), and what he learned from his second near-death experience. Richelieu Dennis sold Sundial Brands to Unilever in 2017 for $1.6 billion dollars. It was a stunning story and not just because of the price tag; Dennis escaped war-torn Liberia in 1987 and started selling shea butter out of his dorm room at Babson College. He’s now one of the wealthiest Black entrepreneurs in the country. And he’s sending the elevator back down for the next generation. As part of the sale to Unilever (the makers of Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s), Dennis insisted the conglomerate invest $50 million in a fund to empower Black female business owners. Dennis, 54, has since backed Slutty Vegan and invested in Monique Rodriguez’s Mielle Organics which sold to P&G in early 2023. He also bought Essence Magazine in 2018, vowing to “to serve and empower women of color.” But apparently owning the brand doesn’t guarantee admission to the best parties at Essence Festival, he admits here in a new interview series called “Cereal Entrepreneur,” hosted by Method co-founder Eric Ryan and journalist Mickey Rapkin. Over a bowl of cereal, Dennis talks big exits, bigger conglomerates, and that rumor that he’s buying BET. MICKEY RAPKIN: Rich, you brought Frosted Flakes today. Why that one? RICHELIEU DENNIS: First of all, it’s the cereal I like eating. I’ve always loved the commercials. And I like to fashion myself tiger-ish. RAPKIN: (laughs) In the early 90s, you were selling SheaMoisture on a card table on 125 th Street in Harlem. What got you out of bed back then? Richelieu Dennis, CEO and Executive Chairman of Sundial Brands Courtesy of Essence Ventures MORE FOR YOU Chainalysis Idling 150 Employees As Chill Of Crypto Winter Persists Elon Musk Declares The U S Dollar A Scam Amid Fears Of 33 Trillion U S Debt Death Spiral As The Bitcoin Price Soars Here s Why Largest U S Utility Stock Just Tanked To A 3 5 Year Low As Sector Flails DENNIS: It was hunger. But that’s every entrepreneur. Rent’s due, you’ve got health insurance you gotta pay—if you could even afford it. But for me there was this overwhelming sense of responsibility: there were no real products or brands tied to [our] ancestral culture. These ingredients existed. You’d have people show up and say, “My mother made so-and-so when we were in South Carolina. And she got it from my grandmother who got it from her mother.” But because Black culture had been interrupted with slavery, that never got translated into actual products and goods and services. ERIC RYAN: That’s really powerful. I’ve never heard you say that—about how slavery basically severed these traditions. DENNIS: You start to think about all of these young people who have no idea what it is to actually have a product that works for your skin type or for your hair type. Disrupting The Beauty Aisle RAPKIN: You once said, “The only place in America where segregation is legal is the beauty aisle.” You sold Sundial to Unilever. But weren’t they the people responsible for that segregation? Did that come up in the negotiation? DENNIS: You bet it did. RYAN: (laughs) There’s Tony the Tiger coming out. DENNIS: If you’re going to transform a market—if you’re going to transform a way of doing things that is wrong—sometimes you need the people that have perpetrated it to recognize that and then correct it. Unilever, to their credit, recognized that they weren’t serving a vast group of people that had the spending power and the willingness. Repeat Offender RYAN: One of the challenges of being a serial entrepreneur—one of the reasons we wanted to do this column—is replicating that first success. After selling Method, I had this real fear: Did I get lucky or was I good? Rich, was that your experience? DENNIS: There was never a feeling of I’ve-gotta-do-this-again. That’s not in my nature. I’m competitive around mission as opposed to accomplishment. For me, there’s so much work to be done in bringing fairness to the marketplace. (pause) It is hard being an entrepreneur. Period. But when Black entrepreneurs have been systemically blocked out of opportunities and access it becomes even harder. There was no infrastructure, there was no ecosystem, there was no path that Black entrepreneurs had to rely on or follow. RAPKIN: You’ve been called “the godfather of budding Black entrepreneurs”— DENNIS: I’m old enough now that I can be the godfather. RAPKIN: The grey in your beard looks good. But let’s talk Mielle Organics. You’re an investor. They sold to Proctor & Gamble earlier this year. But then comes this online backlash from customers saying: They're gonna change the formulas, they’re gonna cater to white women. Was that frustrating to see? DENNIS: I think if you’re Black, you understand it. If you’re white, you marvel at how one could feel that way. White kids grow up in this country navigating abundance. And Black kids grow up navigating scarcity. That leads to different mindsets. When you’ve been marginalized and left out and in a lot of cases abused, when wonderful things happen—thing that would be celebrated in a white community—they get scrutinized differently in a Black community. RYAN: Say more about that please. NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JUNE 29: Richelieu Dennis, CEO and Executive Chairman of Sundial Brands, ...
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