Rethinking The Business of Beauty – Sustainability, Visibility & Trends

Toyin M. Odulate – is the Founder & CEO, Olori Cosmetics, an African-themed cosmetics manufacturing start-up, based out of Lagos, Nigeria. She is a seasoned Consumer Goods and FMCG senior management professional with over 16 years of corporate experience in retail management & distribution, strategic development, operational planning, risk management, business development, product development, branding and marketing across the telecoms, management consulting & Consumer Goods /FMCG industries. She has held past senior roles including missions at L’Oreal, MTN Nigeria & Accenture and most recently as Regional Director Anglophone West Africa at Danone ELN where she worked for the last 7 years.

Toyin is also an entrepreneur and one of the pioneers of organic beauty products made exclusively with African ingredients in Nigeria. Over the last decade, she has gained extensive experience in the international beauty industry including a senior executive role with the French cosmetics giant, L’Oréal. In this role, which included missions in Paris and Accra, Ghana, she managed beauty brands – including Softsheen Carson, LASCAD and Garnier – across Africa and the Middle East, where she honed her skills in beauty, brand marketing, product & business development and distribution and logistics with a focus on the African consumer.

Toyin’s natural affinity for entrepreneurship may be tied to her grandfather, Jacob Soboyega Odulate, the inventor and founder of the iconic Nigerian household headache remedy, Alabukun Powder. As a young girl, she observed this long heritage of blending natural products, and through these calculated experiences, Toyin has quickly become an authority in the business of beauty in Africa. Her company, Olori Cosmetics, was recently featured and awarded in the Companies to Inspire Africa 2019 Report by the London Stock Exchange Group.

Toyin was recently appointed on to the board as an Independent Non-Executive Director of ABInBev West Africa (International Breweries PLC) in May 2019 and is also a Non-Executive Director at Afrinvest West Africa Limited since May 2018.

Fluent in French and Yoruba, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a Master of Business Administration degree from INSEAD.

Chid Liberty is an award-winning social entrepreneur and impact investor. In 2010 he founded Liberty & Justice, Africa’s first Fair Trade Certified apparel manufacturer. In addition to his work at Liberty & Justice, Chid served as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Liberia’s Monrovia Business Startup Center (BSC). The BSC was founded by Spark, a Dutch NGO, for whom Chid managed the Ignite Fund – an equity investment fund that makes strategic investments in companies with high growth potential in conflict-affected states. He also speaks internationally on social entrepreneurship and impact investing – recently at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Princeton Universities, as well as the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and IE in Madrid, Spain. Chid is currently leading L&J through its rapid expansion and rebranding as Made In Africa.

Chid was recognized by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her 2011 State of the Nation Address for his leadership in shaping trade policy and indigenous Liberian entrepreneurship. He is a recipient of the 2018 Ashoka Fabric of Change Fellowship – a C&A Foundation sponsored grant awarded to social entrepreneurs pursuing systemic change in retail supply chains. He was also named by Quartz (a division of Atlantic Magazine) as one of 30 groundbreaking African Innovators of 2017. He was a 2014 Salzburg Global Fellow, a 2011 SVN Social Innovation Award winner, a 2010 Cordes Fellow, and a Yoxi Portfolio SIR (Social Innovation Rockstar). Chid also works as an advisor and board member to a number of high-impact organizations including B Lab, The Unreasonable Group and Unreasonable Capital, and, most importantly – the Georgie Badiel Foundation, which was founded by his wife, former Miss Africa, model, author, and activist Georgie Badiel-Liberty to bring clean drinking water to communities in her home country of Burkina Faso and her adopted second home of Liberia.

Eryca Freemantle is one of the world’s leading makeup educators and researchers. A former makeup artist and advisor to London College of Fashion (UCL), she has worked with celebrities, mainstream brands and leading world renown beauty institutions. Recognized as a leading expert on diversity in makeup and beauty, she has been interviewed by Bloomberg TV and Forbes Magazine.

She believes diversity should be celebrated and should no longer be treated as a tick box exercise, statistical project, fashion statement or gimmick. Eryca is Founder of EATOW, a platform which celebrates successful black experts in beauty, fashion, entertainment and the creative industry across the globe.

She spent many years in Nigeria researching the beauty industry for the British government, sits on the board of Africa’s leading makeup organisation, Makeup Ghana and is a beauty business and life coach ambassador for ‘The Princes Trust.’ She recently spoke at Oxford and Cambridge university, Houses of Parliament and SOAS and was invited to Clarence House where she met The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

She is supported by Nat West Bank and Salon Services, a beauty campaign for women of colour and was recently appointed Governor for a prestigious UTC school in England.

Kwaku Bediako is one of Africa’s leading fashion designers. He is the Creative Director and Founder of Chocolate Clothing, a Ghanaian fashion brand which draws inspiration from the rich African culture, lifestyle, taste and preferences. Chocolate Clothing started operating as a clothing line for women in march 2013 but grew into a men’s wear and later got incorporated in 2018. Chocolate Clothing’s mother-brand, FIGYINA YANKSON, is now capable of handling over 1000 orders a month. The name ‘chocolate’ represents the Afrocentric person; man or woman and also resonates the cravings of its targeted clients.

He won designer of the year 2018/2019 in Ghana, appeared at the Paris fashion week where he had alliances with louis vitton, daniel hechter, Schiaparelli and Jean Paul Gaultier and showcased at the Paris Peace Forum – the fashion show organized by the EU, AFRICAN FASHION FUND, UN ITC-EFI and ethical fashion.

In November 2018, Kwaku participated in a showcase banquet held by the President of Ghana in honor of HRH, the Prince of Wales and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall during their five-day state visit.

Kwaku has dressed celebrities including the CEO of NAACP, Steve Harvey, Boris Kodjoe, Cardi B, Danny Glover, Jamie Foxx, Colin Kaepernick, Jidenna and Jack Dorsey to name a few.