Adcolor Names Richelieu Dennis Its 2025 Beacon Award Winner

Adcolor, the commerce group that celebrates and promotes inventive trade variety, will host its 2025 convention and awards on Nov. 11-14 in Orlando, Fla. Its award suite, the Adcolor Awards, has been recognizing various communities who embody Adcolor’s mission, “Rise Up, Attain Again” since 2007.This yr, in partnership with ADWEEK, Adcolor will honor Richelieu Dennis, govt chairman of the Sundial Group of Corporations, as its 2025 Adcolor | ADWEEK Beacon Honoree. The award honors leaders who leverage their platforms to amplify group, foster illustration, and encourage significant change.Dennis, a famend entrepreneur, is greatest often known as the founding father of Sundial Manufacturers, guardian firm of SheaMoisture and Nubian Heritage. In 2017, he bought Sundial to Unilever in one of many greatest pure magnificence and private care offers in U.S. historical past—and the biggest client merchandise transaction by a majority Black-owned firm. He used the sale as a springboard to launch the New Voices Fund, an funding initiative designed to empower rising entrepreneurs, significantly girls of shade. Thus far, it has deployed greater than $200 million in investments.“Richelieu has proven us what it means to show success into significance,” stated Tiffany R. Warren, founder and president of Adcolor, in a press release. “He makes use of his personal achievements to reinvest in others, and that’s the true essence of Adcolor’s ‘Rise Up, Attain Again’ mission. By means of his inclusive companies and strategic investments, he persistently shows a dedication to financial empowerment, constructing alternatives right this moment whereas concurrently championing the subsequent era of founders.”The New Voices Fund has invested throughout greater than 25 portfolio corporations in classes together with private care and meals and beverage. Two of its best-known exits embody Mielle Organics and The Honey Pot Firm, each women-led companies that scaled into nationwide manufacturers.Dennis at the moment chairs Sundial Media & Expertise Group (SMTG), which owns and operates cultural manufacturers together with Essence, Afropunk, Beautycon and, lately, Refinery29. His “community-commerce-culture” mannequin goals to rework entry to capital, mentorship and alternative for underserved founders, whereas additionally utilizing expertise and AI to construct immersive experiences that join with customers globally.“To be honored with the ADCOLOR | ADWEEK Beacon Award is deeply humbling,” Dennis stated in a press release. “This recognition displays not solely my very own work, however the collective affect of communities which have at all times moved tradition ahead. My journey has been about turning survival into significance, proving that once you spend money on neglected entrepreneurs and construct establishments anchored in tradition, commerce and group, you unlock transformative change.“By means of Sundial, SMTG and the New Voices ecosystem,” Dennis continued, “we’ve labored to create platforms that switch possession, assets and energy again to the communities that form tradition, whereas constructing human connection at scale. This award belongs to each underestimated founder and changemaker who refuses to cease rising.”Adcolor will acknowledge Dennis at its Nov. 14 award present in Orlando. In tandem with the popularity, Adweek will publish an in-depth function on Dennis and his work later this yr.