Kendra Bracken-Ferguson BeautyMatter Next Changemaker Finalist

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson has built a conglomerate that includes Braintrust Agency, BrainTrust Founders Studio (BTFS), and BrainTrust Fund. Expanding her personal brand pillars of community, mentorship, education, and capital, she has created an ecosystem for winning to drive impact and resonance, specifically by creating programming and content to effectively highlight and uplift diverse founders and their contributions across the beauty and wellness industry.

In addition to the external impact, for the past decade, Bracken-Ferguson has built a diverse company that represents the full spectrum of culture, building a team of innovators, builders, and intrapreneurs paving the way for the next generation of entrepreneurs. Her small but mighty team of seven has a diverse makeup of LGBTQI, three nationalities, three generations, and geographical representation across the coasts further proving that diverse teams perform better.

While investing and supporting diverse founders is the right thing to do, it is also the smart business thing to do. Bracken-Ferguson has been committed not only to creating the spaces for inclusion but also leveraging verifiable, tangible data points to reinforce positive impact. It is her mission to show and not just tell of the impact diverse founders are making.

BeautyMatter sat down with 2024 NEXT Changemaker of the Year Finalist Kendra Bracken-Ferguson.

What was the challenge or problem you identified that necessitated a change?

In October 2021, I launched BrainTrust Founders Studio to create an ecosystem of resources for Black founders in beauty and wellness. At the time, my vision was to develop an equitable future and opportunities in the beauty industry for founders who had been left behind, overlooked, and not considered for advancements whether capital, retail, or the basics of mentorship and education. I knew firsthand what I was experiencing as a founder and found supporting data that it wasn’t just me going through this struggle; it was the majority of my peers.

According to READY to BEAUTY Economic Data Study on the Business of Multicultural Beauty in America, 92% [of Black founders] lack access to investment, working capital, and financial playbooks for to business growth; 77% lack access to consistent mentoring and business management; 58% lack access to suppliers and vendors with favorable terms for growing brands; and 55% lack marketing support. Alongside this aspect, we continued to see that Black founders received less than 0.48% of venture capital than their counterparts. In 2022, I invited my longtime friend and colleague, Lisa Stone to join me as co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, and together we launched BrainTrust Fund I, a $15 million venture fund to invest $250,000 to $2.5 million in businesses sourced from BrainTrust Founders Studio.

In our BrainTrust Founders Studio Economic Advancement Report published in March 2024, we found that despite McKinsey’s compelling proof that “VC-funded Black beauty ventures have a superior track record of success compared with their non-Black counterparts,” venture funding to Black entrepreneurs is scarcer than ever. Of the $114.9 million in venture capital and angel investment raised by 25 BTFS founders, the grand majority is concentrated in just 11 companies. Most of these founders closed that funding once they had bootstrapped to demonstrate repeatable revenue, intellectual property, and/or product-market fit. Most of that venture capital was raised from diverse investing teams that include individual investors who identify as Black, brown, and/or as women. 

Creating change is a complex process, usually filled with hurdles. What drives your commitment to keep going?

The impact we are making by providing community, mentorship, education, and capital to inclusive founders is my driving force. As a 3x founder myself, I can say firsthand it is not easy and can be challenging, to say the least. We must stay true to our core mission, our core reason, and believe without a shadow of a doubt that our work will and can change the lives of those around us and that our work matters.

When I think about the over 200 founders in our BTFS and our partners, I am confident we are making a difference for founders with our monthly programming, our members only resource app, our 1:1 management and consulting services to provide strategic coaching and business solutions, and our community activations. I have been able to broaden my focus and expand my relationships, my network, and the myriad of opportunities through my new role to continue to build upon the legacy of work we have completed from what started as an idea to architect a brain trust to tackle the most complex entrepreneurial problems to support the accelerated growth of our members. These 209 founders—91% Black women—in our BTFS collectively achieved nearly $142.6 million in sales, up 42.5% from the prior year, selling 39,000+ product SKUs across more than 47,000 retail doors and online.