Topicals founder and CEO Olamide Olowe and its president Sochi Mbadugha have acquired Bread Beauty Supply through their holding company, Cost of Doing Business (CODB), which they launched in 2024. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. According to Business of Fashion, CODB plans to grow Bread Beauty Supply’s retail presence in the US, beginning with an expansion into more Sephora stores. Topicals and Bread: Two Visionary Black-Owned Brands Topicals is a Black-owned skincare brand founded by Olowe in 2020. It has gained prominence for its products that
Target’s foot traffic has fallen for the ninth consecutive week amidst its 40-day boycott, as stated by Retail Brew. The company’s traffic started to plummet in the first whole week after it shared that it was rolling back its DEI efforts. In March, the retailer announced that it would end its DEI programs, including its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiative and a program focused on carrying more products from Black—or minority-owned businesses. Target’s chief community impact and equity officer, Kiera Fernandez, sent a memo to staff stating, “Many
The Trump administration is urging some large companies in the EU to comply with executive orders to end DEI programs. Government officials have allegedly sent letters to companies in France and the European Union with US government contracts, stating that they should ban DEI initiatives if they want to hold on to their contracts, according to The Financial Times. “Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws and agree that such certification is material for purposes of
Krisp, a noise cancellation app, announced that it will launch an AI tool to convert a speaker’s accent to American English, starting with Indian accents. The company says the AI Accent Conversion will change a person’s accent with a 200ms latency, which Krisps calls “an imperceptible delay in conversations,” whilst maintaining the speaker’s voice, according to The Verge. The tool has already been trialed in enterprise environments, and a beta version will be available on the Krisp desktop app. Users can use the tool at any time during or before
Originally posted at morganlatimer.com There’s an industry slang expression reserved for people who don’t read documentation. It goes by the letters RTFM—read the #$* manual. The same advice applies to job descriptions. It is advice that many tech job seekers seem to ignore to their own peril. They spam their resume to hundreds of positions. Meanwhile, they get few, if any, interview invites. I’m convinced that they either don’t read or don’t understand what they’re reading. For any job, the first official documentation you’ll encounter is the job description. Most job
The Caribbean Venture Collective (CVC) is a new initiative aiming to close the longstanding gap in venture support for founders with ties to the Caribbean. Launched last week by Techstars alumni Daniel Smith and Mita Carriman, the CVC is a global network and founder fellowship program designed to increase visibility and access to capital for the region’s innovators. Venture support for Caribbean founders Trinidad-born Smith is the founder of Keepingly, a platform that helps homeowners manage and store homeownership documents. Carriman, born in New York to parents from Jamaica and
On Tuesday, Forbes released its annual World’s Billionaires list, setting new records in both size and total wealth. Of the 3,028 billionaires on this year’s list, 23 are Black, just 0.8% of the total. Forbes reports that these Black billionaires command a combined net worth of $96.2 billion, with fortunes rooted primarily in finance, energy, and technology. While many familiar faces are present, the rankings have changed a little since the last time we checked in. Notably, Aliko Dangote reclaimed the top spot after being surpassed by David Steward last
Five-year-old Maddox Lopez has earned a spot in Mensa, the world’s largest and oldest high-IQ society, joining the ranks of the top two percent of the population with an IQ of 130 or higher. The New Jersey pre-kindergartener already knows his timetables and has a growing passion for coding and problem-solving, even through computer games, ABC7 New York reports. His achievement follows that of his older sister, Declan, who joined Mensa at age six in late 2023. Learning Starts at Home Their father, Delano Lopez, a health and physical education
Dove has joined a campaign to bring natural and protective Black hairstyles to the emoji keyboard. Partnering with London-based youth nonprofit RISE.365, the brand is calling on the Unicode Consortium to approve four new emoji designs representing afros, braids, cornrows, and locs. The push comes as Unicode prepares to review new emoji proposals this month. The #CodeMyCrown campaign The #CodeMyCrown campaign, backed by global pop star Mel B, is challenging the lack of representation of Black hair among the nearly 4,000 emojis currently available. While over 90 percent of the
Major US tech companies are warning employees on temporary visas not to travel outside the country, fearing they may be denied re-entry amid shifting immigration policies. Tech giants employ thousands of workers on H-1B visas, which allow highly-skilled foreign workers to temporarily live and work in the US. Warnings to H-1B Visa Holders Documents reviewed by The Washington Post show companies like Google and Amazon have advised foreign workers to avoid international travel, fearing sudden policy changes or heightened border scrutiny could leave them stranded overseas. H-1B visa denial rates
