May 2025

Courtesy of CODB Textured hair care brand, Bread Beauty Supply, just found a new home with Cost of Doing Business (CODB). This brand new holding company was founded by Topicals CEO Olamide Olowe and president Sochi Mbadugha, who are also now Bread’s new strategic advisors. From Topicals’s clever brand films to Bread’s cheeky branding, like their trademarked scalp massager, “scalp-thingy,” the acquisition is one that makes total sense—especially as one of CODB’s first.  “Typically when a Black-owned business gets acquired, so many things are changed and altered in a way that isn’t serving our community,” Olowe tells ESSENCE exclusively. That’s why, for Bread founder Maeva Heim, being acquired by another Black business is the point. “They understand what it takes to build...