Tracee Ellis Ross

Company: Pattern Beauty
Title: Brand Founder and Co-CEO
Industry: Consumer products
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Notable in 2023: Introduced the Blow Dryer, a product designed specially for textured hair.

After years of struggling with acceptance, Tracee Ellis Ross loves her hair. Now, the actress and founder of Pattern Beauty is encouraging Black people to be proud of every curl, wave and texture – and changing the narrative on hair bias.

Last August, Pattern entered the professional beauty salon market. The company began to offer in-person and virtual-on-demand training to stylists, as well as discounts to salons wanting to use the product. It also launched its first department store retail partnership with Macy's last year, expanding its footprint beyond Ulta Beauty, Sephora and Boots, among others. In addition, the company also released a blow dryer for curly hair called the Pattern Blow Dryer.

Workplace hair discrimination still exists, with Black women's hair 2.5 times more likely to be perceived as unprofessional, according to the 2023 CROWN Research Study by Dove. And an overwhelming 86% of Black women surveyed by TRESemmé said they have difficulties finding professionals who provide "consistent, quality haircare."

Changing the story on Black hair also means altering how products are marketed to the African American community. Pattern focuses on positives, celebrating hair instead of trying to resolve an issue.

Ellis Ross told CNBC in 2021 that starting a brand that celebrated Black women was her "life's work" after her experience searching for beauty products at stores growing up. "Our little shelf space was at the back in a dark corner of the store and it was the same product from when I was a child to when I was an adult," she said.

While there is a large market opportunity to satisfy, she is hesitant to talk about the scope of the challenge in numbers alone. "I don't think that numbers even crack the surface. Unfortunately, our industry and the world still uses numbers as a way to qualify and quantify our worth, and we are so much more expansive than that," Ellis Ross told the CNBC Inclusion in Action forum at a 2021 event.

"The premise of marketing is often you have a problem, and you need this product in order to fix your problem, and I disagree," Ross said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival late last year. "I shop the most when I feel good about myself. And I think inherently when you're talking about Black people, Black beauty, Black hair, that starting with this idea that there's a problem is problematic."