Chasity Monroe was named chief executive of the hair care brand The Mane Choice, and when the subject turned to historically Black colleges, she drew a line between showing up and paying up.
“We have been making investments into HBCUs, not just with our talents and time, but also with our funds,” she said. “We find that if we’re going to be coming and giving goodies, we also need to be investing in the actual institutions.”
She went to one. Monroe graduated from Florida A&M University’s School of Business and Industry with a bachelor’s and a master’s in business administration, and FAMU named her its inaugural Rattler CEO during homecoming, where she taught an entrepreneurship course called “The Business of Beauty.”
Her career began at Procter & Gamble, working with the Clairol brands. In 2022, she founded Pink Noire Beauty Supply & Cosmetics. “I didn’t choose the entrepreneurial life; the entrepreneurial life chose me,” she said. On the path since Clairol: “Every role since has definitely been one where I was either the first to be in the role.”
She has been in this category since she was a child on the other side of the counter. Monroe wore chemically relaxed hair from the age of five, and the brand she now runs sells to women making different decisions about theirs. “This has always been really, really important for me, knowing how we value hair,” she said.
On what the brand already has: “So it has great bones. And that’s really why I’m here. To just carry it kind of to that next level.”
New product lines are planned for 2027, along with more money into HBCUs. “We see wellness really being kind of the mantra for a lot of Black women,” she said, describing a shift she intends the brand to follow rather than announce.
