We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emmanuella Ojo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emmanuella, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Yes, my business serves an underserved community — specifically, small businesses that are Black- and woman-owned. I’ve always been passionate about supporting these businesses because statistically, the odds are stacked against them. The reality is that startups already face high failure rates, and these challenges only intensify for Black and woman entrepreneurs. You see it reflected in the lack of loan approvals, the massive funding gaps, and the limited access to resources that truly address their unique needs.

That’s why, as an executive assistant and accountant, I’m intentional about addressing those pain points: bringing structure, financial clarity, and operational support to the businesses I work with. One of my most recent and meaningful projects has been supporting the launch of MJ’s Mane — a revolutionary hair relaxer brand created by a Black woman for Black women. MJ’s Mane is the first of its kind: a relaxer free from carcinogens and toxic chemicals, designed to address the health risks that have long been ignored in the market. Guided by its motto “Safe. Simple. Salon-Worthy.,” MJ’s Mane empowers women to achieve the look they want without compromising their health.

As a Black woman myself who grew up using relaxers — because it was the only affordable and accessible option for my busy, hardworking mother — this mission hit very close to home. I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to help bring it to life. I’ve been managing MJ’s Mane’s finances and overseeing the operational and logistical parts of getting the business off the ground. We’ve partnered with a Black female chemist based in Atlanta, and the response so far has been overwhelming in the best way. Our email list continues to grow, and it’s clear that we’re tapping into a long-neglected need within our community.

What makes it even more powerful is that MJ’s Mane is not just offering a product — it’s building a movement. Hair is such a sensitive and important part of Black culture, and seeing it used as a channel for education, community, and empowerment has been incredibly affirming. One thing my father always taught me is that education is power. Through our blog and educational content — providing clear, consolidated information on how to care for relaxed hair, something that’s shockingly hard to find online — we’re equipping Black women with knowledge. And in doing so, we’re not just helping them take better care of their hair; we’re also helping them demand better products and higher standards from the beauty industry as a whole.

Emmanuella, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m an accountant by trade — I earned my bachelor’s degree from Boston University — but at my core, I’m a creative. Creativity has always been a central part of my life. From singing in my church choir at five years old, sketching Powerpuff Girls during elementary school breaks, playing trombone in middle school band, collaborating with my high school friends to create a sewing curriculum with my teacher Ms. Pai, vlogging my study abroad experiences in South Korea, to now helping transform the beauty industry, I’ve always been drawn to the arts in some form.

My accounting skills have simply been a way to bring structure, order, and strategy to that creative spirit. As I continue to develop in my career, I’m finding that operations and project management are the perfect bridge between these two worlds — providing a solid, reliable structure underneath every venture, while still leaving room for creative exploration in how we get there.

This is exactly what I help my clients and collaborators do: I bring structure to their dreams and ideas without boxing in their creativity. That could look like creating strategic quarterly plans to grow their marketing and sales metrics, while also allowing flexibility in how we express that growth through unique campaigns, collaborations, and storytelling.

I currently provide accounting, operational, and project management support to small businesses, with a focus on those that are Black- and woman-owned. One of my proudest projects has been helping launch MJ’s Mane, a revolutionary Black woman-owned hair relaxer brand focused on health, safety, and empowerment.

The main thing I want potential clients and collaborators to know about me is that I am thorough and diligent. When you hand me a task, you can trust that I will deliver — not just checking a box, but truly making your life easier, lighter, and more organized. I care deeply about bringing people’s visions to life with integrity, structure, and creativity. That’s the heart of everything I do.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

One of the best ways I keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty is through consistency and a genuine interest in solving their problems. I think one of the biggest traps business owners can fall into is focusing too much on revenue as the end goal — looking at customers as dollar signs instead of real people with real pain points. What’s served me well, and continues to surprise me, is that when you take the time to truly solve people’s problems at a core level, they’ll be naturally drawn to you and your brand, no matter what you do.

A perfect example is how MJ’s Mane started. It began with simply interacting with relaxer users in a subreddit community — which, at the time, was one of the only online spaces where Black women could openly exchange tips, struggles, and advice about relaxed hair care. As someone who has been relaxed for over a decade, I had a wealth of personal experience to share. I made it a regular practice to set alerts on my phone for new posts and spend time answering questions, following up, and offering tips without expecting anything in return.

For months, it was simply about building trust and providing value — with no product to sell and no immediate return. Then, when I finally introduced a survey to gauge interest in starting a blog community and developing a health-focused hair relaxer, the response was overwhelming. Our social media pages and newsletter quickly grew, and we now receive constant messages from people asking to join our waitlist and wanting to know when our product will launch.

All of this came from consistently showing up, genuinely listening, and making people feel seen and supported. Being real about who you are and the people you want to serve truly does half the work for you.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I’ve had to unlearn — and honestly, I’m still unlearning — is the fear of disappointing others. I grew up being affirmed for people-pleasing, and for a long time. But deep down, it never really aligned with me. Each year, I’ve been pushing the bounds of those “good girl” expectations and the conditioning that came with it.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that I don’t want to be a “good girl,” because good girls don’t make a difference — and I know I was put on this earth to make a difference. That’s looked like giving up a corporate career at a Big 4 accounting firm to pursue my entrepreneurial goals, making a solo move to Japan, and even learning to say “no” to things that no longer serve me, even when it disappoints people. It’s uncomfortable sometimes, but I realized it’s even harder to live a life that I’m not content with.

That same mindset has shaped the work I do now — like with MJ’s Mane. When I first started supporting the launch, I knew it wasn’t the “safe” or “traditional” path most people expected from me. But it felt right. And seeing the overwhelming response from Black women — women who have gone far too long without safe, healthy options for their hair — reminds me why it’s worth it. MJ’s Mane isn’t just about hair; it’s about health, self-worth, and reclaiming power over the products we use.

Choosing purpose over people-pleasing, time and time again, has given me the space to build things that actually make a difference — and that’s the life I want to keep choosing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mjsmane.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mjsmane
• Other: Join Our Waitlist: https://mjsmane.myflodesk.com/mjsmane