Nancy Twine has been on a plane every week in 2024. When she managed to find a few minutes on her calendar to speak for an interview, the call was shoe-horned into her Saturday morning — a day one would think someone who’d recently sold her business to a major corporation might have off. But Twine didn’t ride off into the proverbial sunset when she sold Briogeo; in fact, she’s never been more involved with the brand — or busier.

“I’m still both the Founder and CEO of Briogeo; my position hasn’t changed at all. And I’m also now on the Wella leadership team, so, if anything, my role has expanded,” says Twine.

While negotiating the sale to Wella, Twine was mindful of not just the sale price and the financials, she also prioritized preserving what she calls Briogeo’s “core values” — and that included keeping her on board post-sale and allowing her to continue to steer the brand.

As a result, the acquisition didn’t change her day-to-day job responsibilities. “As the Founder, I’m still doing press interviews, training sessions, and events; I’m the face of the brand. And as CEO, I spend a lot of time on strategy, supporting the teams around things like supply chain issues, thinking through our annual operating plan or marketing campaigns, and helping resolve conflicts that may exist between our channels and a retailer. It is a lot of work,” says Twine.

So, what has changed since the sale? On the personal front, shortly before the acquisition, Twine bought a condo in Miami — and now happily considers Florida her home base.

“I was living in New York City by myself during the pandemic and it was really tough. I was also living in Times Square, which is where most rallies for the Black Lives Matter movement were taking place. It was a heavy time,” says Twine.  “But then some of my New York friends picked up and moved to Florida, and I was like…’why Florida?’ I thought of it as a vacation spot — how could you live and work from there? But then I started to go down on weekends a few times a month to visit friends and I realized it’s incredible. I am definitely one of those people who needs sunlight, and there’s so much more space. I’d never invested in real estate before because the New York real estate market was always out of my budget. But I started looking at condos in Florida and realized that I could actually afford to buy something there. So, in my late thirties, I purchased my first piece of real estate.”

Florida is also where Twine met her future husband. “In addition to all the wonderful people I’ve met down here, many of whom are now among my closest friends, I also met my lovely, lovely fiancé in Florida; we got engaged in November.”

On the professional front, the biggest change for Twine has been “getting off the hamster wheel of fundraising,” she says. “At Wella, we have a stable home that supports us and that has created both security and consistency. Constantly having to fundraise is distracting, and a lot of founders find themselves on that hamster wheel every 18 months. Not every day has been perfect since the sale, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how supportive, kind, and collaborative the Wella team has been.”

One of the biggest changes born of the Briogeo-Wella partnership: Briogeo has finally stepped into the professional salon market. “This is really big deal,” says Twine “because, over the past decade, we’ve had so much interest from independent salons and stylists. But we didn’t have the resources or internal expertise to enter that space in the right way. That’s one reason Wella was such a strategic partner for us; the professional salon market is their bread and butter.”

With Wella’s direction, Briogeo has linked up with Salon Centric and Cosmoprof and “we want to continue to nurture and build the professional category in hopes it will become as big a piece of Briogeo’s business as retail has been,” says Twine.

Wella’s acquisition has also enabled Nancy to have time to (finally) focus on helping other entrepreneurs — especially those in the BIPOC community. “When you were building a business, you can become very heads down, focusing on your business and not looking at what’s going on around you or helping others because you just don’t have the time,” says Twine.

But thanks to the Wella deal, Twine now has a management team in place and corporate backing that are enabling her to “lift up my head, look around me and figure out how I can help,” she says.

One way she hopes to give back and educate is through her new podcast, Makers Mindset, a biweekly interview series in which Twine speaks with female founders and leaders, such as Jessica Cruel, editor-in-chief of Allure, and Karissa Bodnar, founder and CEO of Thrive Causemetics.

“Last International Women’s Day, I began devoting more time to creating content on my website, nancytwine.com, with the goal of addressing key topics that entrepreneurs are navigating, like how to create a pitch deck or finding the right manufacturer. We have over a hundred articles on the site now. But I also wanted to hear from other entrepreneurs who’ve built a brand or career. When you open up TikTok or Instagram, you see all these people giving advice, but many aren’t real experts; they haven’t lived what they’re preaching. I started talking to people about how they like to consume their media and many said they listen to podcasts, so I decided to create some content in that format,” says Twine.

Getting off the hamster wheel has also allowed Twine to dive deeper into efforts to provide not just advice — but also money — to burgeoning BIPOC entrepreneurs. I want to “pave the way for other women who look like me. In 2021, Sephora launched their Sephora Accelerate Bootcamp, a workshop for BIPOC beauty founders that helps support them with retail readiness. And for the past few years, I’ve been teaching a finance and operations curriculum. I’m a big advocate for getting your house in order — not just your products, not just the marketing and the creative.  You have to have a solid financial plan and supply chain structure to support what it takes to be successful in retailers.”

In her interaction with these founders Twine noted that one of the biggest challenges they face is securing capital. “Many are not ready to take on institutional investors; it’s way too early. But they also may not have access to friends or family capital — so, where do they even get the money for that first purchase?” she says.

This realization motivated the creation of Twine’s just-launched $1 million Dream Makers Founders Grant, an initiative that will provide financial support to female entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on Black and BIPOC founders in the consumer goods industry. The grant will span from 2024 to 2027 and distribute $250,000 annually to selected recipients.

“I created this grant to provide critical, early-stage funding to underrepresented female founders. This support is uniquely structured; it doesn’t involve surrendering rights, equity, or entail payback obligations. It’s designed to let these founders concentrate on their vision, while securing the essential funding they need for their startup needs,” said Twine.

This year, the Dream Makers Founder Grant is collaborating with Sephora’s 2024 Accelerate program and the Fifteen Percent Pledge to select its recipients. The eight recipients from the Sephora Accelerate program have already been chosen and they will each receive a portion of $125,000. Applications for the other $125,000, to be distributed in partnership with the Fifteen Percent Pledge, are now closed (the deadline was April 30), and five recipients will be announced in August.

“The most important of my own future goals is to help more people. When I think about the parts of my life that bring me the most joy, it’s always helping others. And I also think a lot about how I can scale my efforts, reaching and adding value to entrepreneurs just getting started.”

Nancy will share more about her extraordinary career and philanthropic efforts as Keynote Speaker at the CEW’s 2024 Visionary Awards, Tuesday, May 7 in Santa Monica. Formerly known as the Female Founders Awards, the Visionary Awards will shine a spotlight on female entrepreneurs who have not just founded a brand but who’ve shown exceptional strategic and creative vision, as well as success and leadership in the beauty industry. Visionaries will be honored from five categories: Representation, Entrepreneurship & Economic Impact, Breaking Barriers, Community & Social Impact, and Innovation & Leadership.