Amber Stanford
Amber Stanford, as the Founder and Owner of Ambeezy’s Organic, is a purpose-driven healthcare and wellness professional with over 17 years of experience as a clinical nurse and healthcare consultant, dedicated to preventive care that improves outcomes for both humans and animals. She has always had a love for taking care of animals and helping people, which ultimately inspired her career in nursing. Growing up in a loving and generous household, her grandparents on her father’s side emphasized nutrition and natural living, shaping her early understanding of wellness — even influencing simple childhood habits around food ingredients. She carries those values into her professional and entrepreneurial work, believing that health and prevention begin long before illness through education, access, and intentional lifestyle choices.
Her business journey began after one of her three dogs, her Pekingese, suffered from severe allergies. Using her healthcare background, she initially applied clinical knowledge to her patient care but soon realized she had not applied the same principles to her own pets’ nutrition. After carefully reviewing ingredient labels, she determined that diet was significantly impacting her dog’s health and transitioned him to an all-organic diet that she personally prepared. The results were remarkable, and when friends and family began requesting similar products for their own pets with one friend even insisting on paying her Amber recognized the broader opportunity to support animal wellness through clean nutrition. She officially registered Ambeezy’s Organic in July 2021, experiencing organic brand growth through farmers markets, community engagement, and early retail placements, including Air One. Over time, she learned that entering retail is very different from sustaining success within it, which motivated her to pause expansion for the past two years to build a stronger operational, supply chain, and brand foundation.
Now preparing for relaunch, Amber is applying everything she has learned from healthcare, business development, and consumer product strategy to scale responsibly. She is currently completing onboarding with a premium Los Angeles–based retailer while pursuing strategic partnerships to expand access to premium, organic pet wellness products. Driven by mission-aligned partnerships and community impact, she is passionate about building businesses that create long-term social and economic value, particularly supporting women and minority-owned entrepreneurship. Outside of her professional and entrepreneurial work, Amber enjoys spending time outdoors, reading, and being with her family, especially her nephews. Her long-term vision is to continue bridging healthcare and consumer wellness by helping shape a future where prevention, education, and access to quality health solutions are available to both people and their pets.
• Registered Nurse
• Pacific College - BSN
• Animal Shelter
What do you attribute your success to?
I personally contribute my success to God first - the qualities that are instilled in me. I think just being a genuinely kind and good person is so important, and I feel that's underestimated sometimes, especially these days. We can all use a little more kindness. Honestly, I think my success really comes from having a genuine love for people and animals, and just being able to connect with people. I love that, you know? Even when it comes to my business, I don't really view it as being about the money - obviously money is great, but I'm not in it for the money. Even when it comes to nursing, you can always tell the ones that are there for the paycheck versus the ones that are there because they care. That genuine passion and care for others is what drives me.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
First, finding your community and your people is so essential, because a lot of times we try to build and do things on our own, and you can get so much further with support. My advice is to find your community, and I'm happy to be one of the people you can reach out to - if you have questions, please reach out to me for anything. I want people to know that I'm around and that they can reach out for any questions, because it's so complex with manufacturers, co-man, and all of that. Really just be a student of the industry - look at the data, go to events that are specific to your field. If you're in the pet industry, there's SuperZoo, there's Global Pet Expo, and that's where you can be immersed. You can find mentors there that have been in the industry for years - it's a 20-plus year industry - so you can build connections and gain a lot of knowledge. Go there to connect with suppliers, with manufacturers, to see what's trending, to get inspired. That's the best place to be, especially if you don't know where to start or where to begin. This really excites me because I think it's all about paying it forward, and I feel like especially in the pet industry, for hundreds of years there's been gatekeeping. It's less than 1% woman and Black-owned pet brands. For me to be in this space and kind of pioneering for others that look like me brings me a lot of joy and gratitude, because I want to be able to share knowledge with others.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being a genuinely kind and good person is so important to me I think that's underestimated sometimes, especially these days. Having a genuine love for people and animals, and being able to connect with people, is central to everything I do. I love hiking and being outdoors in nature - being from LA and a fourth generation Angeleno, the sun is definitely my thing. I love spending time with my animals - I have 3 dogs and 5 chickens, and they're like my therapy. My husband and I don't have kids, so our pets are our kids. When we do get a moment away from work, it's about being outdoors, hiking, or going to the beach. I also give back to the community in various ways - a minimum of 50 hours a month of community service. A lot of it's just my time, being a listening ear to people that need guidance when it comes to their family issues, and I use the Bible to help guide people. I also volunteer at animal shelters, give a portion of my sales back to shelters monetarily, and volunteer my personal time to help with transports, walking dogs, and organizing adoption events. I don't talk about it a lot because what I give is not for bragging or in vain it's just what I believe in doing.