After Learning Tennis Great Venus Williams Was Her Company’s No. 1 Fan, Stephanie Morimoto Put Her Branding Dreams Into Hyperdrive

Stephanie Morimoto was six months into running Asutra, her Chicago-based wellness company, when she received a voicemail from a man claiming to represent “a well-known individual” who wanted to chat about her business. At first, Mori­moto assumed it was spam, but a LinkedIn search proved otherwise. She quickly called him back.

The man on the other end of the line, as it happened, was reaching out on behalf of seven-time Grand Slam tennis champion Venus Williams, who, he said, ” ‘loves your products and wants to talk to you,’ ” recalls Morimoto, 46, Asutra’s owner and CEO.

That led to a meeting, and a few months later, in the spring of 2019, Williams agreed to join the company as part owner and chief brand officer.

It was a critical moment for Asutra. Morimoto was in the process of relaunching the company, which she had acquired in 2018 from its original founders, a pair of brothers. Asutra at the time made a few products, several of which Morimoto used personally. Practically all of its sales were on Amazon. Morimoto, who had spent years working in nonprofits and then as a consultant at McKinsey, saw untapped potential. “They had focused on optimizing for Amazon, but not necessarily on building a brand,” she says. “There wasn’t the look, feel, and story you’d expect from a holistic company.”