At the intersection of policy, beauty, and business development, Rahama Wright has been building a skincare brand that’s more than skin deep. Since 2003, Wright has continued to scale her business, Shea Yeleen, selflessly. The beauty brand focuses on high-quality, natural shea butter skincare products that nourish the skin. Intentionally producing in Northern Ghana, Wright sees the brand as an opportunity to facilitate work within the community. Her focus on ethical trade started in college and extended into her Peace Corps service.
“There are an estimated 16 million African women who are part of the global shea butter supply chain. But for decades, they’ve been invisible,” she shares. Working with these women, bringing light to their time-honored practice, is the core of the Shea Yeleen business model. After her time in the Peace Corps in a small village in Mali, Wright’s interest in creating income-generating opportunities for women who were unable to afford basic medical services or access education for their children was born. “When I moved back to the US, I began to connect the dots so they could take their raw material, turn it into a high-quality product, and bring that product to consumers.”
Wright’s idea worked. Partnerships with women-owned cooperatives in Ghana to power Shea Yeleen have bolstered an African supply chain that employs more than 800 women earning five times the local minimum wage. By processing raw materials at the source, the brand involves its African partners in the process from start to finish. With eyes towards expansion, Wright plans to create similar supply chains in countries like Chad, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, South Sudan, and Uganda.
The Yeleen Beauty Makerspace, her most recent entrepreneurial endeavor in Washington, DC, makes use of Wright’s own manufacturing facility as a greater good for her community of founders in the industry. After realizing that beauty founders, unlike entrepreneurs in the food space, don’t have access to commercial spaces, “I decided to expand my idea to create a space for other companies so we can leverage our collective resources to build successful beauty brands,” Wright explains. Creating 200 jobs in an underserved area of the nation’s capital, the space will disrupt an industry where Black-owned businesses generate revenue equivalent to less than a quarter of what Black consumers spend.
Owning a strong vision of brand identity can make the inevitable choice of retail partners challenging. For Wright, working with Whole Foods, Macy’s, and MGM Resorts has been key to the brand’s growth. Her selection process begins with a deep dive. “Understanding the retailer’s ethos and strategic goals can help a brand craft a strong pitch that can open doors for shelf placement,” she shares. When she’s not vetting retailers, Wright takes her responsibility as an advocate for US-Africa commerce seriously. She’s served on the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa since its establishment in 2014, and was reappointed for a fourth term in 2022—speaking at the United Nations, COP26, World Bank, Department of State, and more. She offers policy recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce and the president to improve trade and business engagement between the US and Africa—proving shea butter is more than a powerhouse ingredient, but the key to a network of uplifted women creating economic opportunities worldwide.
