The Achieve Podcast - Kendra Bracken-Ferguson (LumiNicole Beauty)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, those who are shaking up their industries and making an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and today excited to be joined by Kendra Bracken Ferguson, co-founder— now co-founder of multiple organizations, Kendra. So give us the backstory for those getting to know you, like what brought us here today.

Oh my gosh, Taylor's like, okay, there's this, there's that, there's this. I always say, um, I believe in carpe diem, number one, and number two, I believe in pivots and prayers. So that is pretty much my career. So I'll share with everyone a quick snapshot. I'm Kendra Bracken Ferguson. I'm so happy to be here. Um, I started my career in PR at Fleischman Hillard. I was one of those people in 6th grade, I knew I wanted to do public relations. I knew I wanted to work at one of the top 5 largest companies in the world. I'm blessed and fortunate I got to do that. I worked at Fleischman Hillard for many years, became the youngest vice president in the New York office, was recruited to go to Ralph Lauren. I was always the beauty fashion girl, so ended up going to Ralph Lauren, which was amazing. I was the first director of digital media. I loved Ralph Lauren. I traveled to the Olympics. I launched the brand across all social media, and then I met my first business partner, Karen Rabinowitz, who changed my life. I texted her literally one Saturday morning and she called me immediately and I said, I have an idea to manage bloggers. And she said, me too. And that was in 2009. We launched Digital Brand Architects, which we all know and love today, was acquired by United Talent Artists Agency. So excited about that. It was crazy because when we launched, there was no YouTube or Pinterest or all these things. And now so many of The bloggers now influencer content creators, key opinion leaders, or, you know, 8 and 9 figure dollar balance. So that was my bug for being an entrepreneur. And the thing is, is that we raised money. That was my first time raising money for that company, and it would later become kind of the catalyst for everything I would do in the future. So fast forward, company sells. I decide, what do I really want to do? I'm sitting in my office and I'm like, what have I learned? And what I learned was I love being around smart people. I love smart conversations. Everyone's smart in their own right. Um, but I also learned the importance of trust and integrity. And I grew up in Round Rock, Texas, and people are supportive, they're kind, they're helping out their neighbors. I moved to New York and LA, and it was the first time that people would look you in your face, in your eyes, tell you they would do something, and then not— just blatantly not do it. And I never understood. I'm like, what did you think would would happen if you said you would do it and you didn't? So on my whiteboard, I wrote brain for smart people, and I wrote trust, that I would never again be in business without integrity. And that's how I launched Brain Trust, which started as an agency, social media, marketing, events. It evolved into Brain Trust Founders Studio, which became the largest platform for Black beauty and wellness founders. And then I said, you know what, Taylor Baker Baker Baker, I was like, okay, you're doing all these things, My pillars are community, mentorship, education, and capital. And I wanted to figure out the capital piece because I had experienced investors and I was part of that first group of 100 Black women that raised more than $1 million for my company. And so I knew what the stakes were. And so I called a new business partner, Lisa Stone. We went out, started Brain Trust Fund, a $15 million venture fund. We invested in about 12 brands, and I got to be the investor that I always wish I had had. So that fund is deployed. We did what we set out to do, and I literally was like, now what? Now what? And so one of my really good friends, Leslie Roberson, she owns Black Beauty Collective, so stores in Chicago and LA. And honestly, Taylor Baker Baker, we were thinking about everything that's happening in the world, and the the work that we had been doing, and we said, you know what, pivots and prayers. So we educated ourselves on the automated retail space. For those who don't know, automated retail is the premium version of vending machines. Vending machines are chips and snacks. Automated retail is premium items. So we essentially own automated retail stores. We include 15 to 20 different beauty and wellness brands across 22 categories of beauty and wellness. Wow. And we have these beautifully amazing using automated retail stores on college campuses. So that's what we've got, Taylor Baker Baker. There's more, but I'm gonna hold it for the rest of the show.

Oh man, there's so much impact. Like, you can do like a dozen episodes on each one of those stories at this stage. Well, I'm gonna let you kind of decide where you— which one you want to focus on. What would you say is actually driving growth for your companies and organizations right now?

So that's a great question. It's interesting because like you, I found myself in the world of podcasting. And back in December of 2020, I signed what I thought was a 1-year contract with Mean Hotline Media, my, my podcast network. And I was like, I'm only gonna do 1 season. I don't know about this podcasting thing. And so here I am, 2026, we're in season 6, 220-something episodes. We were just named 31 on the top 100 business podcasts. And it's interesting because as you know, you have to love to have conversations with people. Mm-hmm. But that platform outside of everything else, it led to, um, my publisher. My publisher was a subscriber and listener and reached out and said, have you thought about doing a book? So hence my bestseller, The Beauty of Success: Start, Grow, and Accelerate Your Brand. This deal came from the podcast, the brands that I curated for my studio because it's all founders and executives and influencers talking about business, how they did it, how they scaled it, what they did. And so, and it's behind the scenes. And so that's how I was able to build the studio. That's how I've kind of figured out which brands I've wanted to invest in. That was the first time Leslie and I launched Lumina Coals. So I love the businesses, but from a pure play, like, how are you growing the ecosystem that I've built. Um, and it's really through the art of storytelling and networking and relationships. Wow.

So how big is the organization right now?

So, um, I have kind of divided my ecosystem as to keep it fresh. KVF Ventures. And for people that are listening, I got this advice from one of my celebrity clients that I worked with for 6 years, who's one of the most recognized women in the world. And it was about starting a holding companies so that I could protect my interest in different things. And so I started KBF Ventures because I was running my agency, but I also had investors. I was, I started a nonprofit. I also was investing through my funds, but then I was investing in things that I cared about. I was doing projects. I do a ton of public speaking, so I needed an anchor to hold that. So that's KBF Ventures. That's me and a few off great offshore talents that help operate that. And then for Lumi Nicole, we have a team ambassadors on campus. We have our campus relations team, our business development team, um, our creative director and our vendor relations specialist, and Leslie and I. And we launched our first, um, machines at Adelphi University on March 26th. We're getting ready to launch at a major university that starts with a C that is in Ithaca, New York. So we're gonna be announcing that soon on May 15th. Um, but you know, at times like when I was running Braintrust, you know, I got the agency for a social media agency. I got us to $5 million. We got acquired. We had, um, I was kept always trying to keep us under 50. 'Cause if you know, you know what, once you get over 50 employees and we had teams in New York, LA, and London. So, you know, at this point I'm really excited about the virtual nature of how we work the teams. I love having college students on our team. They just bring so much energy and insight and excitement. Excitement. So yeah, Taylor, it's a growing ecosystem. Wow.

So, Kendra, looking back over your journey, what turning points have had the greatest impact on how you think about running the organizations?

Oh my gosh. So it's really interesting because what I have learned about myself, and I think that as leaders running businesses, as executives, we really have to understand what our pillars are, what centers us, what grounds us, what fulfill us— fulfills us. I think we also have to figure out what are our non-negotiables, because I spent time in my career doing things that didn't serve me or that I didn't really want to do because I hadn't been able to really clearly articulate, these are my non-negotiables, this is what I want to do. You know, that's why when I was sitting in my office talking about Brain Trust, it was like my non-negotiable is having someone in business who doesn't have the same integrity set, mindset, or foundation that I have. We can have different beliefs. We can be on opposite sides of political parties. However, the kindness, being of service to others, how we show up, a mutual respect, doing your best— all of those things are very important to me. And I'm very spiritual. So when I look at all of the different points in my career, one, really came when I was making the decision to leave Ralph Lauren. I loved Ralph Lauren. I wasn't in a situation where, oh my God, I don't like my job. Like, I thought all my kids were going to be wearing little polos. I was like, I'm going to be here forever. And then I met my business partner, and when I went to tell them that I was leaving, they were like, talk to the chief of staff. Like this, you know, something must be up. And she said, tell me about your business. And I started telling her the plan and she said, it sounds like You have a good plan, you want to do it. And she said, and guess what? Your last name isn't Lauren. And I was like, ah, she's like, so if it doesn't work, you can come back or do something else. But if you don't try, then you'll never know. And because your last name isn't Lauren, everything that you're building here, you will never participate in, in the way that you could building your own. And it's true whether we like it or not, like we will have a good life, but we won't have the ownership. And so that was a pivotal moment that sent me from corporate, which I had always wanted to do. That was my dream. To being an entrepreneur. And then I think the other pivot really was being able to, after DBA, to say what I was really good at. Like, I was always a visionary. I always had great ideas. In college, I was the president of my sorority. I was a gold duster. I was this, that. But I always had a hard time out loud being like, I am good at helping brands start, grow, and accelerate. I'm good at brand strategy. I'm good at business development, and I'm the ultimate connector. And I couldn't say that. But it was after that company where my business partner, she— you could ask her, you wouldn't even have to ask her, and she could tell you how fabulous she was. And I always wanted to be able to do that. And so the pivot from knowing I was good at it, but expressing it, saying it with confidence, not ego, but in a humbling way of, this is how I add value to the ecosystem that I'm building, that happens internally, and it supports all the external work and people that deal with, frankly, on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, that's wonderful. You found your voice to be able to, to do that.

Yes.

Let that light shine.

Taylor said let that light shine.

So next question then, it's kind of a two-part. For you, what have you found that works well with marketing and attracting customers and keeping them?

Oh my goodness. So for those of us that have run agencies, like teams and people and clients are like, it's the hardest thing but the most important thing. Like, it is the hardest thing. So, um, transparency, honesty. Um, one of my partners used to always say, bad news first, good news can wait. And I really found that with clients. Like, the thing is, is no one's perfect, and we happen to be running social media for clients. And so the mistake is not only can everybody see it, but everybody will see it and people will have something to say. And so I used to say to my clients, like, one, we have to double-check everything. We have to be committed to excellence, right? We don't necessarily have to be perfect, but we have to do our best. There's things that we can avoid, right? And then we have to be very honest, honest in communication. If you make a mistake, everyone is human, but you've got to catch it before the client does and you have to not continue to do it. So once it happens one time, you might twice, but after that, the best client relationships come when you can acknowledge your mistakes, you can be honest, and you can let them know immediately, and then you can fix it. There's only, there's only so much grace you can get in a client relationship. And then I think with the team, you know, teams and people are hard. There's emotion, there's real life happening. And I always would say to my team, like, we may not always be here together, we may not always work together. That's the reality. But if you can say that this experience changed your life, that it enriched your life, that it taught you something that you didn't even know you were ever going to learn, but now you have that skill set, then I'm happy. That's all I can ask for. You show up, you get your work done. I trust you. I'm not a micromanager, for better or for worse. And then we all just become— can become better versions of ourselves. Like, I think that was the best part of teams and agency and clients. You got to see your work. You got to feel the impact. And so I think if you can follow those steps, it'll get you closer to having a great relationship and sustainability.

I love that. Committed to excellence doesn't mean you're perfect. Be honest, own your mistakes.

Yes.

So, so good. So the second part, when it comes to sales and marketing, where do you still see opportunity and money on the table?

So it's, it's interesting because, um, I spoke at this, uh, Retail AI Summit. From the founders of ShopTalk, and it was amazing. And I spoke about everyday uses of AI. Now, there's the everyday use, like, I just— I have a birthday coming up on Saturday. I got some blood work done. I can't see my doctor for 2 weeks. I'm like, come on, AI health agent, um, what do we need to do? And then there's also this interesting, you know, Claude. I know everyone's talking about Claude, but I have been having such a great time with my workflows in Claude. And I think that in marketing, AI is not here to take away from us. AI is here to enhance it. And I think with marketing, we still need the strategy, we need the brains, we need to map it all out. I still love a mood board. I still love a strategy session. We need strategy. We need the human brain to help us determine what other humans like, love, need, and want from us. Yes. The other side of this is that we can use the tools to be so much more efficient. We can have more clients. Like when I think about our agency days from 2015 and all the work that we had to do and all the teams and all the people, and I'm like, wow, we can actually still have the team so we can have more clients, we can help more people, we can do more work, we can put more creative things out into the world. And so I think it is this balance of the human meets how do you use technology effectively to do your jobs better and to do your jobs faster, not so that you can overwork yourself, but so that you can have more productivity to use your brain to do the things that only humans can do. And so I'm excited about that for marketing. I'm excited about A/B testing. I'm excited about influencers. I've built my entrepreneurial career on influencers and content creators, key opinion leaders. I feel like now more than ever, we can as humans tell our stories faster and more succinctly and beautifully through the tools that we have. And, and it saves us time. I'm all about a little bit of time saving. So I think that's it. I think it's leveraging the technology for our use in terms of marketing to expand our reach, our and client opportunities. I think that it is still— we are still in an influencer creator economy. We can do more with talent than I think we ever could before. And then I also think that there's, there's still something to be said when we think about advertising. It's how we do it. It's the creative, it's the units, and it's the expansion of the things that we could never do before and the audiences that we can reach now.

I love that. Well stated there. Well stated, because yes, I like you.

Taylor's like, you got it, girl.

No, it's so true. Finding that balance with the human element, like only humans can understand what the need is, but utilize it. And then don't use— like, use it to create value, to maximize your efficiency, but don't overwork yourself, like you said.

Yes, I have. So it's Taylor— it's so interesting because I started my, um, like, I grew up, I say, in New York, so My husband and I met in 1998, our freshman year of college. We moved to New York when we graduated, and it was so amazing, right? You're running around all the time, you're going to every single event, you're leaving work, you're at a happy hour, you're this, you're that. And like, you didn't— first, you didn't leave the office until your boss left. I don't know what's happening these days, but back then you were sitting in the office until your boss left, or you were sitting in the office until 8:00 because then you could eat for free and you and you could take an Uber home. Those days in New York when we were taking— well, Black car services because we didn't have Ubers back then. And so you have this amazing time of hustling. But now as I'm older and I have a daughter, I have all these other things, I've really been thinking about the harmony and the alignment of the work that we do. And so one of the things that we haven't talked about yet is another business partner. I've literally compartmentalized all my business partners, but, um, one of my good friends, LaShasta Bell, she's a sleep expert and a licensed mental health coach, and we are doing a retreat called From Hustle to Harmony: The Beauty of Success Through an Optimal Life in Costa Rica. And it's all about sleep, wellness, and purpose for, you know, women executives, high achieving. We're running the world so that we can literally sleep and we can literally say that we can work hard, we can have big dreams, we can have big visions, We can have all the things that we want. But when that hustle moves to harmony, we have alignment. And as we age and get older, taking care of ourselves internally, sleep becomes even more important. And understanding that wellness isn't just about taking a vitamin. It literally is our financial, our mental, our spiritual, all the things, and then finding purpose in that. So that's really— when we talk about the hustle, I was like, And let me share how now I'm balancing that at this point in my entrepreneurial and marketing journey.

I love that. Now you touched on AI, where there's a lot of talk and buzz around it. Where have you found ways internally to use it and where are you still exploring?

So, um, my, my business partner Leslie Roberson has developed this new company called Luminary Blueprint, and it's fascinating because her background is really in recruiting. She was at Meta and Wayfair and Ernst Young, and she has been leveraging the tools to create something that I haven't seen before when it comes to matching talent with marketing departments. So you're the marketing department, you need 6 different people across all of these different subsets. And so she's literally taking the database of all the talent, all the people that she knows, and then she's using AI for matching, but she's built some proprietary coding on top. And I think from a mark— someone who ran a marketing agency, who works in marketing every day, the ability to source the talent and then efficiently use the tools to navigate around what we want. I also think that that's the future because you have less time to find the talent. There is so many great talent, but then finding the system to really look at it. And so we're using it from, from a matching perspective. We're using it in Lumina Coal, our automated retail store. We have an AI sales associate on top of our machines. And so it literally has taken vending to the next level because no one's bringing in AI sales associates at that level. And it's also helping us with data and inventory and what products are we selling and what does everybody want. And so for the external, how do we use AI from a data perspective, a research perspective, a matching perspective, a recruitment perspective? And then an overall, how do I build my marketing department? What do I need based up on the revenue I have now and based up on the revenue I wanna go? And so it's the external, and then the internal is leverage the tools to create your own personal workflow and management system.

Mm-hmm.

For those of us who do work in multiple fields, and even if you have a corporate marketing job, there's still things that you're doing in your personal life. And so literally at the end of last year, I I put in everything that I was working on, what my goals were, and I created my own personal AI agent and then management system to track my time, to track what I'm doing, to track my content. And what I used to pay a chief of staff, which I still need a chief of staff, but my AI chief of staff is great. It just only talks to me in its British voice. But I think that if you can use the tools in that way, external, internal, your own workflow, it just helps everything be more efficient. AI is the future, and we have to use it to make ourselves better and to make ourselves more efficient.

I love that. I love that. Well stated. So, Kenda, if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

One constraint to focus and solve? Double ganging, maybe. Oh my gosh. Oh, that's like— I just, you know, I think it's because the one thing about AI, AI gives us this false sense of how much we can accomplish. Because AI— I already have a high capacity. I love that about myself. I never expect anyone on my team to have the same capacity, but I have one. Me on AI is like crazy. And I have to be like, do, do, do, do, do. And I'm on this screen and that screen. And so I have to have constraint in terms of how I can leverage the tools to just do more. And at a certain point, I think that's the constraint of AI. We really have to be careful because as you know, like AI never stops. Like it's always gonna be like, and what about this? And would you like this? And do you want an SEO? And do you want your key tag? Do you want like, and then you go down this thing and you look up and it's 3 hours later. The only thing you've done is talk to your AI about all the additional things that you want to do. Do. And so, finally, you know I'm right. Taylor Baker Baker Baker is like, yeah, I just had this marathon. So that is my constraint. My gift and my opportunity is the balancing of the tools so that I don't get caught up in the tools world where I can't move forward with the things that I need to do or that I'm focused on. And so I think in the next 90 days, for me, it's the constraint of tools to your benefit, not tools as a hindrance. Use them wisely and make sure that I remain focused with my overall project management system so that I can get things done. Because I can't have a double ganger. There cannot be two of me. It'd be too much, Taylor Baker Baker.

I love that. Because yeah, you get almost like some people binge watch Netflix, so you get binge— what? You get binge hooked into your AI for hours. You're like, oh my goodness, I got Being productive, not just busy.

Yes. And you do, you get sucked in because it's trained to keep you on there. And it also is going to tell you that you're great and your ideas are amazing and you nailed it and you've got great job, Kendra. So then you keep going because you're like, oh, affirm me, tell me I'm smart.

Yep. Certified genius.

Yes, yes, yes.

So, you know, when you look at your own journey, the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out and what lessons you feel like took longer to learn than they should have?

Oh, oh my gosh. Okay, Taylor, I'll make this quick. I literally was just looking at my Bible verse and I was like, God, why do I keep getting in this situation? And it was funny because my Bible verse is like, God's going to continue to put you in that situation until you've learned the lesson that he has for you. And so I really try and be discerning, like having discernment I also believe God will give you humility before he exalts you. So in all things, with all the success, all the things that we have, there has to be a level of humility and understanding so that we can be exalted until the next level. Um, I also truly believe in, in this notion of carpe diem, and not so much in the sense of YOLO and all of that, but more about intuition and listening. So I always pray every morning for God to keep my ears open and my eyes clear so that I can see and I can hear what's coming for me, right? And so oftentimes when things pop into our brain, we may push them aside. In business, we have to be discerning so that we can act. And that's why I say carpe diem. I was thinking about somebody, thinking about somebody, and I was like, let me text that person. By texting that person and getting on the phone, it led to a new investment in our company because we are actively raising for Lummi Nicole. And so I always think about I have to be open to hearing, and I also have to be open to receiving. As executives, a lot of times we're working so hard, we may not ask for help. If we don't have the team, like, we can get caught up in a cycle. And so we have to be able to receive that as well. And so I really try to keep those things top of mind. I really have to trust my gut. I have to believe without a shadow of a doubt that my ideas will work, but then be open to receiving help and open to pivoting if it doesn't— really makes sense. Um, and then I think that we really have to understand that there are things greater than us at play, and we have to be willing to acknowledge that so that we can be the greatest versions and have the greatest lives that we're meant to have. So Taylor, I'll leave you there because I could tell I was like starting to go off in my like Kendra sermon. So I'll leave you with those things, and I'll also say that everyone should get a copy of The Beauty of Success because this is a great book. And if you are looking for marketing tips, how to build a brand, a team, how to figure out your own personal pillars, that's what I got for you, Taylor Baker Baker.

Thank you so much, Kendra. I know, I know you're on a time crunch. So those who wanna reach out, obviously LinkedIn is a great option. You have multiple websites. Where do you wanna send people?

Okay, so to keep it clean, kendra-bracken-ferguson.com. So literally all you need to know is Kendra Bracken Ferguson. That is my website. That is my Instagram, the longest handle ever. That is my LinkedIn. Um, go to LinkedIn. You can read my Diary of a Founder newsletter, but that's really, that's where you can find me, kendra-bracken-ferguson.com.

We'll have in the show notes as well. So thank you so much for coming on, sharing so much wisdom and insight in your story. Beautiful. So, and thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you're not sure, just start, get going. I love it. Pivot and prayers. So get going. So thank you, Taylor, and thank you for joining us, and we'll see you in the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.