Germaine Bolds-Leftridge is a beauty broker who is the owner of GBL Sales Inc. Bolds-Leftridge is responsible for the major success of brands such as Mielle Organics, Luster Hair Products and CurlDaze, among others. In addition to helping Black beauty entrepreneurs become millionaires, her Ubiquitous Women’s Expo, held on July 21-23, 2023, in Washington, D.C., was created to encourage women everywhere to work together to build success.
Bolds-Leftridge opened up about her journey as a beauty broker and how this special women’s event has been fruitful for the community.
How does it feel to help Black entrepreneurs achieve success?
You know what? It’s never enough. I try to use my contacts to help other people to make it happen for themselves because we don’t have access. I’ve always said that [and] it’s unfortunate that people don’t give help to people that need help. You don’t get money when you need the money. I’ll never forget even with Mielle I was trying to [secure] a major financial institution [to finance them] because they were trying to scale up fast, and we weren’t successful.
I couldn’t believe it, after they got their first evaluation, I [got] a call from that same bank and [they] said, “Can you reintroduce? They don’t need y’all now. They have it already.” So you know, it’s important that we support one another. Because if we don’t, we’re going to be lost.
We have to do more and cannot just talk the game. Some of us don’t want to help because we’re so afraid that the other person is going to get ahead of us. That’s when you are a real queen when you can help somebody even though there’s a chance that they may get ahead of you. It may not be your time.
What level of impact do you want Ubiquitous Women’s Expo to have?
My goal is when I’m no longer here, that people are still mentioning my name because I’ve made a difference. With Ubiquitous, I started that because I wanted a platform for people. The DMV is a very important market for it. We’re trendsetters in the DMV, a lot of the retailer’s main stores are here in the DMV, and so it was a platform for my clients and other brands to come and showcase their products for this very important consumer base.
Last year, it was absolutely amazing. We did free mammograms. It was a little bit scary because it was coming after COVID, and a lot of shows before our show weren’t successful, [but] God showed up and showed out. We had a lady that sent us a letter that said Ubiquitous saved my life. She found out that she had second-stage breast cancer and her twin had second-stage breast cancer. So, those are the kinds of things that we try to do
