Sharon Chutner, the founder of Uoma Beauty and a driving force in the movement to diversify the beauty industry through both the company she founded and her own personal initiatives. was found on Aug. 14 dead on a patio, and her death is currently still under investigation, reports People Magazine.
Kirbie Johnson, who runs the newsletter “Ahead of the Kirb,” reported that a source familiar with Chutner’s circles said a former executive from Chutner’s company confirmed Chutner’s death.
Chutner, who launched Uoma Beauty in 2019 at Ulta with an initial offering of more than 100 inclusive beauty products, came with bona fides in the beauty industry, including most notably, convincing Revlon to distribute beauty products in her home country of Nigeria.
A year after launching Uoma Beauty, as conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion gained momentum following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Chutner introduced two pivtol initiatives — Pull Up for Change and the #PullUpOrShutUp campaign — challenging beauty companies to disclose the number of Black employees in corporate and leadership roles within 72 hours of being called out.
Her initiative also encouraged consumers to vote with their dollars and avoid companies that failed to divulge this information.
Chutner spoke about this in more detail two years later, during an episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show.”
“I did that really to drive more awareness and shine more light to the lack of economic opportunities for the Black community, especially within the beauty space. I’ve always been the person who speaks up. Whenever I see something that needs to change, I don’t have it in me means to just sit it out,” she told Barrymore.
In 2023, in spite of all her work on behalf of diversity with Uoma Beauty, she opted to step down as CEO of the company, which she later explained was a decision she made after a significant health scare in January of that year that made her seek out a more healthy work-life balance.
She also admitted in an Instagram post addressing the matter that it wasn’t entirely voluntary, something she would expound on in a lawsuit two years later.
According to Allure, in 2025, a few months before her untimely death, Chutner filed a lawsuit against MacArthur Beauty, BrainTrust, and Settle Funding, alleging that “BrainTrust took control of Uoma’s operations and ultimately pushed Ms. Chuter out of her operational roles.”
In addition to this, BrainTrust both stopped Uoma’s operations while she was on medical leave, which she alleged was supposed to end in July 2023.
According to her lawsuit, she was also supposed to return in a “chief brand officer” capacity wherein she would have been in charge of “overseeing creative, product development, as well as being the face of the brand… This did not happen.”
Furthermore, after the lawsuit was filed, BrainTrust gave their side of what happened as Chutner’s tenure with Uoma came to an end.
“It’s not our practice to comment publicly on our investments in private companies, but this specious complaint requires a response. Ms. Chuter resigned from the Uoma board and publicly on Instagram after hiring an interim CEO who performed a forensic accounting review of the company,” they said in a joint statement with MacArthur Beauty, LLC leadership.
The lawsuit Chutner filed in February 2025 in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges that BrainTrust et al engaged in “constructive fraudulent transfer, intentional fraudulent transfer, aiding and abetting fraudulent transfer, receipt of stolen property, and unjust enrichment.”
As a result of this, the lawsuit states that Chutner was seeking “damages for fraudulent transfer and MacArthur and BrainTrust’s receipt of Uoma’s nearly $50 million in stolen assets.” Which she noted in her lawsuit should be “determined according to proof at trial in excess of the jurisdictional minimum of $25,000.”
Despite the complex nature of the lawsuit, Chutner’s untimely death leaves many legal matters unresolved for now.
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