Renee Cottrell-Brown
General Partner

Renee Cottrell-Brown brings a wealth of marketing experience from start-up entrepreneurial companies to publicly held multi-nationals in the health and beauty aids industry.

A native of Oakland, California, Ms. Cottrell-Brown was raised as a teen by her entrepreneurial father, Comer Cottrell.  She received her experience early on, while in high school, helping her dad sell the products of his ethnic hair care company door to door until the company established retail store distribution. By the time she graduated from the University of Southern California, her dad’s company, Pro-Line Corporation, was manufacturing and distributing a full range of hair care products from a huge plant in Carson, California.

In 1980, Mr. Cottrell relocated his company to Dallas, Texas.  Six years later Ms. Cottrell-Brown followed her dad to Texas and began her marketing career.

Over the next 20 years, Ms. Cottrell-Brown gained experience in sales and marketing management with a rapid and consistent success record of growth and advancement.  A highly focused individual, talented in aligning consumer needs and insights with market opportunities, she has a proven track record of successful product launches from initial concept through project completion.

Ms. Cottrell-Brown has held several executive marketing positions during her tenure with the company, the most recent being Global Vice President of Retail Marketing.  Today, owned by Alberto Culver, Pro-Line International is a worldwide leading marketer of consumer beauty care products.  During her twenty-five year career with Pro-Line she won many industry awards for her innovation and stellar performance in marketing. 

Some of Ms. Cottrell-Brown’s career achievements include the introduction of three category leading ethnic hair care brands with Just-For-Me in the children’s category, Soft & Beautiful in the women's relaxer/hair straightening category and Pro-Line’s Comb-Thru in the men’s grooming category.  These brand and product innovations increased Pro-Line International’s revenue over 360% in a 7-year period.

In 2006, Ms. Cottrell-Brown left Pro-Line International/Alberto-Culver.  She formed Streetwise Marketing Solutions located in Arlington, Texas and began to build her independent company that specialized in providing marketing services to start ups and small to medium growth companies that market multi-cultural personal care products. Just about that time, her long time friend Renee Higginbotham Brooks introduced her to Nadean Day, who had created a line of natural hair care products.  Being a busy hairstylist, Nadean knew she would need a marketer to make her entrepreneurial dream of marketing a line of hair care products a reality.

It took Renee Brooks, who swore by Nadean’s products, to convince Renee Brown that they really worked.  When the products healed Renee Brown’s hair and scalp challenges, the three went to work on Nature’s Essential Ingredients (NEI). 

“Together, we have over 50 years of experience and know-how,” said Renee Cottrell-Brown. “We know how to align a consumer’s need to a market opportunity. We are not trying to set the world on fire. We just want to give health to the consumer’s wounded hair.”

Renee Cottrell-Brown is married to Eric Brown and they have two daughters, Autumn and Erica.