Adcolor, the commerce group that celebrates and promotes artistic trade range, will host its 2025 convention and awards from Nov. 11 via Nov. 14 in Orlando, Florida.
Its award suite, the Adcolor Awards, initially launched in 2007 and acknowledges numerous communities who embody Adcolor’s mission, “Rise Up, Attain Again.”
This 12 months, in partnership with ADWEEK, Adcolor will honor Richelieu Dennis, the chief chairman of the Sundial Group of Firms, 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, mother or father firm of SheaMoisture and Nubian Heritage.
In 2017, he offered Sundial to Unilever in one of many greatest pure magnificence and private care offers in U.S. historical past—and the most important 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 colour. To this point, it has deployed greater than $200 million in investments.
“Richelieu has proven us what it means to show success into significance,” Tiffany R. Warren, founder and president of Adcolor, stated in a press release. “He makes use of his personal achievements to reinvest in others, and that’s the true essence of Adcolor’s mission. By way of his inclusive companies and the New Voices Fund, he constantly shows a dedication to financial empowerment, constructing alternatives immediately whereas concurrently championing the subsequent era of founders.”
The New Voices Fund has invested throughout greater than 25 portfolio firms 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 remodel 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 impression of communities which have all the time moved tradition ahead. My journey has been about turning survival into significance, proving that if you put money into neglected entrepreneurs and construct establishments anchored in tradition, commerce and group, you unlock transformative change.
“By way of Sundial, SMTG and the New Voices ecosystem,” Dennis continued, “we’ve labored to create platforms that switch possession, sources 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 12 months.
