Tristan Walker

Entrepreneur and business executive

• Born: July 5, 1984
• Birthplace: Queens, New York

Significance: Tristan Walker is an American entrepreneur and business executive. He founded Walker & Company Brands, a health and beauty company, to produce products for people of color. Among its brands are Bevel razors and trimmers and FORM Beauty, a collection of women’s hair-care products. Since the sale of the company to Procter & Gamble, he has continued to serve as CEO of the subsidiary.

Background

Tristan Walker was born in Queens, New York, on July 5, 1984, to Bettie Walker Harris and Roger Vassar. He was the youngest of three children. When he was three years old, his father was murdered. He and his family lived in public housing at times. They moved to the Flushing neighborhood in Queens when he was six. He attended Queens schools—Cadwallader Colden and Junior High School 185, Edward Bleeker School—before receiving a full scholarship to the elite Hotchkiss prep school in Lakeville, Connecticut. He was the varsity captain of the basketball and track and field teams. He graduated in 2002.

He attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook, finishing in three years. He graduated as valedictorian in 2005 with a degree in economics. He pursued his career goal of working on Wall Street. He worked for Lehman Brothers first as an intern and later full-time as an energy trader from 2005 to 2007. He was an energy trader for J.P. Morgan, which let him go in 2008 during corporate restructuring, and an intern for Twitter in 2009. However, while working as a trader, he realized it was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Hours before he got the layoff news at J.P. Morgan, he was accepted to Stanford Graduate School of Business. He earned his MBA in 2010.

Life’s Work

Walker became interested in Foursquare, a startup that used location data, as a second-year MBA student. He was persistent in pursuing a career with the startup, repeatedly emailing the founders, and in 2009, was hired as director of business development. He developed hundreds of partnerships for the company with American Express, BravoTV, and other brands and merchants. He was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz venture-capital firm in 2012 and 2013. The post, which lasts up to nine months, involved brainstorming with the company to develop startup ideas. Walker founded a nonprofit organization, CODE2040, to promote diversity in the tech industry, and served as chair. He left Foursquare Labs in 2012.

The following year, he founded Walker & Company, for which he was chief executive officer (CEO), in Palo Alto, California. His venture into grooming and health products was the result of a problem with which he had struggled for fifteen years. Shaving his face left bumps on his skin because multi-blade razors cut the hair below the skin surface; the hair then grew into his skin, causing irritation. He discovered that the problem did not occur when he used an old-school, single-blade, double-edged razor because it cut the hair at the skin’s surface. He pitched his ideas to venture capitalists with some success, but celebrity investors such as John Legend and Magic Johnson, who could relate to his struggles, were a big help. Nas, another investor, mentioned his Bevel brand in a 2016 track. As the razors and trimmers gained popularity and customers, he decided to expand to address other skin issues Black people experience such as irritation and dryness. He got his products into major retailers including Target and Walmart.

In 2018, Walker was having a difficult year. The company was almost out of money and he was going to have to cut staff. Then late in the year, Procter & Gamble agreed to purchase Walker & Company. This made Walker, who was staying on, the first Black CEO of a subsidiary in the company’s 180-year history. As part of the deal, Walker & Company moved to Atlanta, Georgia. He said it was important to him to situate the company in a place where Black people lived.

Walker attributed much of his success to privilege. While his family was impoverished, teachers recognized his intellect and encouraged him to apply for scholarships to prestigious schools. His success at Hotchkiss led him to greater success after high school. From there he achieved his dream of working on Wall Street, which allowed him to leave investing behind, be an entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz, and pursue entrepreneurship.

Impact

Walker’s entrepreneurship raised his profile considerably. USA Today named him the Person of the Year in 2014. He was featured in Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, Ebony’s list of 100 Most Powerful People, and the Hollywood Reporter list of Digital Powers 50, all in 2017. As chair of CODE2040 he worked to boost Black representation in the technology industry by matching young adults with internships and similar placement opportunities. He also sat on boards of corporations including Foot Locker and Shake Shack.

Personal Life

Walker married Amoy Toyloy Walker. They are the parents of two sons.

Bibliography

Cool, Kevin. “Tristan Walker MBA ’10 CEO, Walker & Company Brands.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, 15 July 2022, www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/mba/life-community/alumni/voices/tristan-walker. Accessed 5 July 2023.

Gelles, David. “Tristan Walker on the Roman Empire and Selling a Start-Up to Procter & Gamble.” The New York Times, 12 Dec. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/tristan-walker-corner-office-procter-gamble.html. Accessed 5 July 2023.

“How Did I Get Here? Tristan Walker.” Bloomberg, www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-did-i-get-here/tristan-walker.html. Accessed 5 July 2023.

Lacy, Sarah. “Against Considerable Odds.” Startups, 20 Sept. 2022, www.startups.com/library/founder-stories/tristan-walker. Accessed 5 July 2023.

Luna, Jenny. “Tristan Walker, MBA ’10, ‘Values Are Universal.’” Stanford Graduate School of Business, 9 Feb. 2023, www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/tristan-walker-mba-10values-are-universal. Accessed 5 July 2023.

McCorvey, J.J. “Tristan Walker: The Visible Man.” Fast Company, 11 Nov. 2014, www.fastcompany.com/3037933/the-visible-man. Accessed 5 July 2023.

“Tristan Walker.” The History Makers, 29 Nov. 2017, www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/tristan-walker. Accessed 5 July 2023.