Chasity Monroe built her career at Procter & Gamble, then opened a Black-owned beauty supply store in Memphis. Now she is the chief executive of The Mane Choice, one of the best-known natural hair care brands in the country.
The company, which sells in Target, Walmart, Sally Beauty and on Amazon, announced the appointment this month, as Black Enterprise and AfroTech reported. For Black women, who have spent decades as the biggest buyers of hair care and some of the smallest owners of it, a Black woman and Florida A&M University graduate running the brand is a change in who holds the controls.
Monroe worked on Clairol brands at P&G, including Nice ‘N Easy, Natural Instincts and Herbal Essences. She later served as CEO and chief innovation officer of Afro Unicorn Magical Tresses, and in 2022 she founded Pink Noire Beauty Supply & Cosmetics in Memphis, Tennessee. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from FAMU.
“I didn’t choose the entrepreneurial life; the entrepreneurial life chose me, even through kind of my corporate experience,” Monroe told Black Enterprise.
The brand has a Black founder and an unusual growth story. Courtney Adeleye launched The Mane Choice in 2013 with $500, and Black Enterprise reports sales passed $100 million a year within six years. MAV Beauty Brands bought it in 2019 for $61.5 million. The jobs that decide what the brand makes and sells now go to someone who has run her own shelf space and knows its customers.
Monroe’s list is concrete: revenue growth, retail expansion, new products in 2027, and a push into wellness. The company plans lines for postpartum, PCOS, perimenopause and menopause, health concerns that fall hard on Black women and that mainstream hair brands rarely address. Monroe is also pursuing a patent on hair growth technology. On the science side of hair care, she said: “This has always been really, really important for me, knowing how we value hair.”
AfroTech reports The Mane Choice has also put money into FAMU for student scholarships, though neither outlet says how much.
The test is whether the brand’s new products reach shelves, and whether the next Black founder gets a seat at the table like Monroe’s. The first launches are due in 2027.
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