About TextureMedia™, Inc.
TextureMedia, Inc., formerly The NaturallyCurly Network, is the social media company empowering, embracing and connecting the world of curls, kinks and waves. The flagship brand, NaturallyCurly.com®, is the trusted leader in original content and community for the influential woman. Other online brands include CurlStylist℠, a professional community for stylists servicing the textured hair clientele; CurlMart®, a boutique e-commerce site showcasing more than 60 brands and 550 community-vetted products; and CurlyNikki℠, the leading natural hair expert in the blogosphere, encouraging people everywhere to share their experiences, frustrations and triumphs of being naturally glamorous. The company introduced two new brands in 2011: Curls On The Go® on iPhone and Android mobile platforms, and TextureTrends℠, semi-annual syndicated market intelligence addressing the growing needs and requests of hair-care brands. The company’s footprint spans every corner of the globe, engages its audience across multiple platforms—across online, mobile, social and print, and partners directly with hair-care brands and publishers to reach this active consumer group through advertising, sponsorship, social commerce, events and market insights.
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Our Team
Co-Founders
Michelle Breyer
Co-founder & President
Michelle Breyer helped create the leading community and resource for people with curly hair with her business partner and friend, Gretchen Heber. Frustrated by the lack of information on curly hair and the limited products available in the marketplace, the duo launched the site in 1998 with the help of a 14-year-old web designer. When Procter & Gamble called three years later to advertise to the NaturallyCurly.com® audience, Breyer knew they had indeed created a force in the industry, providing helpful information and unparalleled expertise for what was then considered a niche market.
Gretchen Heber
Co-founder
Co-founder Gretchen Heber is a California native and graphics design professional. She and Michelle created NaturallyCurly’s online community when the two of them worked for the Austin American-Statesman, a leading newspaper in Texas. As a child who was often teased for her intensely curly hair, Heber worked diligently to make NaturallyCurly.com® a success. With her newspaper design expertise, Heber began conceptualizing the website, which, upon its launch, instantly developed a community and became the “go-to” site for those with curly hair that reached curlies around the globe.
Management Team
Crista Bailey
Chief Executive Officer
Crista Bailey joined NaturallyCurly.com® in late 2007. She has 20 years of business experience working with startups, lifestyle offerings and packaged goods brands, including CitySearch, Ticketmaster, Nestle, Lollapalooza, Vine Connections and Austin City Limits. Though her locks are straight, she connects with and is inspired by the curly community’s message of embracing one’s true self.
Jeff Winesett
VP of Technology
Lori Kerrigan
VP of Integrated Media
Drawing upon more than 15 years in the advertising industry where she worked on Fortune 100 brands, Lori Kerrigan joined the TextureMedia℠ in 2008. She is responsible for cultivating and building new relationships while managing and maintaining existing advertiser relationships. Her extensive background in client management and account planning is essential as she helps build salon owner and stylist relationships and works to spread awareness and interest to various areas of the sites.
Our Advisory Team
Our diverse, experienced advisory team is an active, talented network and think tank on-call for our network of sites. The team represents multiple industry pioneers, from healthcare to technology to e-commerce and business strategy.
Jimmy Treybig
Founder of Tandem Computers, venture partner with NEA
John Paul Dejoria
Founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Tequila
Sam Decker
former CMO, BazaarVoice
Linsly Donnelly
Founder of Joann.com; veteran of Bain Consulting
Kat Jones
Founder of Milkshake Media, branding firm that created the global LIVESTRONG campaign
A Word From Our Co-Founders
We are two regular gals, who share, in addition to friendship, curly hair. We share a history of fighting curls and kinks. We’ve longed for ponytails that swished. We tried in vain to imitate the hair fashions of the day, which were usually designed with straight hair in mind.
There was no place to turn for advice. And so, having at last accepted our curliness, we created NaturallyCurly.com® for ourselves and for others, whose curly beauty is rarely heralded in popular culture. We asked ourselves, “Why do women with curly hair feel they must chemically treat it, iron it, relax it, blow dry it and otherwise utterly beat the life out of their hair simply to be accepted by society?” Curly hair is natural—a person should be able to embrace her curls and love them just they way they are. If she wants to straighten, that’s fine, too, but no one should feel she must change a fundamental part of her appearance simply to be accepted by society. TextureMedia™‘s brands are slowly changing society’s view of curly hair; we’re making it more accepted. We’re teaching women to love their hair; we’re showing them how to care for it.