Linda Dempah is the founder and CEO of Adeba Nature. She was born in the Ivory Coast where she lived until she moved to the USA to attend college. She graduated cum laude from Wesleyan University with a BA in Mathematics and Economics and went on to get her MBA at Harvard Business School.
She started her post-MBA career at Ameriprise Financial where she excelled at negotiating high-value and strategic contracts as a director in Sourcing and further honed her strategy and operations knowledge at McKinsey and Company.
While working in corporate America, she traveled frequently while leading an active lifestyle. She paid little attention to maintenance rules for her then permed-hair and ended losing it all. As she avidly read natural hair blogs after blogs and tried products after products, she struggled to establish a simple routine with products she could trust. That’s when her mother, an Ivory Coast-based pharmacist with 30 years of experience, gave her a mysterious oil to try. She had found out about it during a recent visit to her ancestral village and took some back to the capital city. That was the best thing Linda ever put on her hair. Her usually coarse strands became cotton-soft overnight! She gave some of the oil to her friends who urged her to start market it in
the US. Adeba Nature was born!
Adeba Nature’s products are 100% natural, vegan, made with locally-sourced, organic (food-grade) ingredients by using techniques developed by Akan women over multiple generations and modernized by Linda’s mother. The company is dedicated to improving
economic and social conditions in Cote d’Ivoire, empowering Black women across the world and protecting the environment. The name “Adeba” means “chic, beautiful woman” in agni, the language of the Sanwi Kingdom in Ivory Coast, and this is exactly what the company stands for, beauty and class in and out.
Linda Dempah will be receiving the 2021 IUGB Foundation Education & Leadership Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship. She will be presented with this award September 15, 2021 during the IUGB Foundation Scholarship Virtual Gala. Find out more information and BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE.