Founder · Speaker · Builder

Where beauty, technology and care meet.

Rica Elysée is the Boston founder of BeautyLynk® and creator of Care in the Chair™. She speaks on building technology-enabled beauty businesses, AI in beauty, and trauma-aware client care.

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Rica ElyséeFounder & Speaker · Boston, MA

About

Meet Rica

Rica Elysée smiling, seated on a stool in a blue dress, studio portrait

Modjossorica "Rica" Elysée is a Boston founder whose businesses sit where beauty, technology and care meet. Rooted in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, she began as a community organizer and marketer who built a beauty community for women of color, then started building BeautyLynk® in Roxbury at Smarter in the City.

Today she is Founder & CEO of BeautyLynk®, an on-demand beauty platform that connects clients with licensed beauty professionals and is bookable in 180+ U.S. markets. She built the BeautyLynk pro network to 16,000 beauty professionals before COVID. She created Care in the Chair™, a trauma-aware, scope-safe client-care training that helps stylists, barbers, nail technicians and estheticians notice distress in the chair, respond without interrogating, and connect clients to real help. She co-founded #AtTheTable, her female founder advocacy platform pushing women founders past the 2% funding line. She also writes The Beauty Brief, a Substack on the beauty industry.

Rica Elysée, seen from behind, standing in the Door of No Return on Gorée Island, Senegal, looking out toward the sea — At the Door of No Return, Gorée Island, Senegal.

BeautyLynk®

On-demand beauty, bookable in 180+ U.S. markets.

Care in the Chair™

Trauma-aware, scope-safe client-care training.

#AtTheTable

Co-founder. Female founder advocacy pushing women founders past the 2% funding line.

Female founder advocacy

At the Table

#AtTheTable is the female founder platform Rica Elysée is building to create more seats, more stages and more capital for women who build companies. All-female founding teams still receive about 2% of U.S. venture funding, or less. #AtTheTable exists to move past that line through creative opportunities and signature events like the Above 2% Gallery, a portrait exhibit celebrating women founders, and Female Founders Day. The goal isn’t a seat saved at the edge of the table. It’s women founders funded, backed and leading from the center of it.

Speaking

Talks & Workshops

Keynotes, conference sessions, workshops and panels. In person or remote.

Beauty + Technology / AI in Beauty

Mirror, Try-On, Convert: AI/AR That Earns Trust in Beauty Retail
Retail After the Filter: Designing Beauty Experiences Clients Don't Regret

Marketplace Growth

Supply Is the Product: Scaling On-Demand Beauty Without Burning Pros
The Beauty Brief: What Is Actually Changing in the Beauty Industry

Trauma-Aware Client Care (Care in the Chair™)

Care in the Chair™: Trauma-Aware Client Care for Licensed Beauty Professionals
Chair Protocols Workshop: Building Trauma-Aware Service Standards for Your Team

Black Women Founders in Tech

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: A Female Founder's Blueprint for Shattering Expectations in Tech
Navigating Tokenism: Thriving as the Only Female Founder of Color in Tech
Building in Public Without Being the Exhibit: Black Women Founders in Beauty Tech (panel)

Founder Storytelling

From Chair to Brief: Turning Beauty Operators into Industry Storytellers

Rica Elysée explaining a point during an in-person session as a participant looks on

Rica Elysée in a small-group conversation in a lounge

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Selected appearances

Stages & Media

Ideas shared with communities, founders, industry leaders and public audiences.

2017KeynoteBoston City Hall Courtyard Festival (Boston City TV)
2017FinalistVisa Everywhere Initiative women-led startup pitch competition, Austin
2017Panelist“Are We Asking the Right Questions?” Women@Forbes Under 30: Closing the Tech Gap, Forbes Under 30 Summit, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge
2018Panelist“Tech in Every Industry,” Google Women Techmakers International Women’s Day Summit, Google Cambridge
2018Panelist“Women of Color: Building Communities Through Entrepreneurship and Leadership,” Brown University Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship
2018Panelist“Consumer of the Future” panel, Jefferies Global Consumer Conference, Nantucket
2018Panelist“How To Open Your Own Door,” Women@Forbes Under 30: Closing the Investment Gap, Forbes Under 30 Summit, Boston
2019Panelist“Paving the Way: Women Taking the Lead and Making an Impact,” Google Women Techmakers International Women’s Day Summit, Google Cambridge
2019Featured founderVisa Everywhere Initiative: Women’s Global Edition campaign
2019PanelistLeading On Inclusive Business (WE EMPOWER G7, a UN Women / EU / ILO program), Boston
2023Panelist“Catch 22: Manage the Ever-Changing Risks of a Contracted Workforce,” Marketplace Risk Management Conference 2023, San Francisco · Marketplace Risk Advisory Board member (2023)
2025Panelist“Unfiltered Leadership: Breaking Norms, Building Inclusion,” alongside leaders from LVMH North America and Fendi Americas, Babson Women Connect 2025: “Rebuilding the Table,” Babson College (Mar 2025)
2025Workshop leader“Walk in Her Shoes: Building Your Leadership Identity,” workshop for the Women’s Leadership Scholars, Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL), Babson College (Apr 2025)
2025Workshop leader“Boss Up: Ignite Your Inner Entrepreneur & Launch with Impact,” breakout workshop, Momentum: Women in Business – Celebrating & Creating Change, Charles River Regional Chamber women’s conference, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA (Jun 2025)
2025PitchBuild in Tulsa
—Panelist“The Conscious Stylist,” Be+Well NY / IBS & IECSC
2025Featured guestGBH News “Rooted”: Care in the Chair™