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Director of Brand Content Strategy
Stacey Soble has been involved in the conversation of salon business for more than two decades—as a reporter, a consultant and as the editor in chief of SALON TODAY. She has been responsible for growing the brand's celebrated recognition programs, SALON TODAY 200 and SALONS OF THE YEAR, and has launched two new competitions in recent years--STAMP (SALON TODAY's Annual Marketing Program) and the SALON TODAY Total Makeover Competition. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of salon business at industry events.
The average American will gain 5 pounds from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. With a few simple changes to how you approach the holidays, you can prevent this from happening and possibly even get a jump start on your New Year's resolution.
As Eufora Founder Don Bewley welcomed nearly 700 stylists to the 2012 Global Connection in San Diego, he implored them to suspend ego for the two-day event and open up their hearts and minds to learn something new. "You have to unlearn to learn," he stressed. "The more you educate yourself, they more you realize there's a lot you don't know."
Those who live in Seal Beach, CA, affectionately refer to the sleepy community as ‘Mayberry By the Sea,’ but on Wednesday, October 12, the town, located about 30 southeast miles from Los Angeles, was the unlikely scene of a workplace shooting that is sending shock waves through the nation, as well the professional beauty industry.
Lynelle Lynch’s foray into the professional beauty arena was by chance. In fact, after college, her passion for fashion led her to a 15 career with Saks Fifth Avenue where she served as general manager for multiple stores across Southern California. After marrying her husband, who among his 26 business owned three beauty schools, Lynch found herself suddenly taking over Bellus Academy, when the school’s manager of 30 years passed away. “That was 6 years ago and it has been a wonderful journey revolutionizing Beauty Education and now we are focused on raising the brand of the industry!” Recently, Lynch pioneered the Beauty Changes Lives program, an initiative to designed to raise awareness of how careers in the hair, beauty and wellness industry transform lives.”
January 2012 marks Debra Penzone’s 25th anniversary with The Charles Penzone Salons, with six locations in the Columbus, Ohio, area. She started out as an assistant and gradually worked up the company’s ladder, as a stylist, designer, director, senior director, creative director, vice president of training, senior vice president then president. In addition to continuously charting the company’s course of success, Penzone has worked tirelessly for her local community on projects such as the American Cancer Society’s Look Good…Feel Better, the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women, the Komen Columbus Race for the Cure, as well as developing the Charles Penzone Mother-Daughter Spa Day for A Kid Again. In 2011, Penzone published her first book, Debbie’s Club: Discovering MyTrueBeauty for Girls to help inspire and empower girls to see their unique beauty from the inside out.
When Karie Bennett cut her bangs on her third birthday, her family didn’t know she was taking the first step on her career path. And when the young stylist took her first styling job at Command Performance, she hadn’t yet envisioned that she’d own two (soon three) salons, capture the 2011 NAHA Salon Master of Business Award and follow another path by enrolling in the Writer’s Group at Stanford University and becoming a magazine and newspaper writer. “It all seemed to unfold depending on the choices I made,” she says. “I wasn’t afraid to take a risk or make a mistake.”
With a cosmetology license in hand, Sara Jones blazed a career path that’s brought her to lead Joico/ISO, one of the most dynamic manufacturers in industry. After working two years behind the chair, Sara Jones became an educator for Redken, traveling a five-state region in the Midwest educating salons in haircolor. She eventually moved into sales management, holding executive positions for several top manufacturers, including Wella, Graham Webb, Sebastian and Matrix, before finding her way to Joico in 2005. In 2011, Jones was named the City of Hope’s Spirit of Life Honoree and she spearheaded a year-long industry campaign which raised $1.2 million for the healthcare facility.
As a teenager, Jane Wurwand worked at a salon in her native United Kingdom as a “Saturday Girl,” an entry-level apprentice that sweeps hair trimmings and sorts through and sterilizes hair-pins. But she fell in love with the business, and when she discovered skincare, she found the career path she would blaze. Today, Wurwand’s Dermalogica line is sold in more than 80 countries and her International Dermal Institute offers curriculum in 40 global locations. In 2011, Wurwand expanded her vision beyond skincare by establishing joinFITE (Financial Independence Through Enterpreneurship) to extend microloan to women in need around the world to help them establish businesses that can provide for themselves and their families.
In addition to building a small salon family dynasty just outside of Chicago, Provenzano actively serves on the board of Cosmetologists Chicago for more than 10 years, currently as its secretary. The association has credits Provenzano’s leadership position as helping shape salon owner events and education available through America’s Beauty Show. Back in Naperville, she’s shaping a strong business she eventually plans to pass down to her two sons—Sam, 36, and Nick, 33— and their families.
Patricia Owen’s beauty career started behind the counter as an educator and makeup artist for Estee Lauder cosmetics. Later, she opened FACES as a small ladies retail boutique on Hilton Head Island, then over the years transformed into an award-winning day spa. In addition to beauty, Owen’s biggest passion is business, and over the years her involvement with her local Chamber of Commerce led to her sitting on the boards of the U.S. Small Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, involving her in national conversations about issues, such as taxes, access to financial regulation and health care reform. She’s even represented the small business owner in testimony before the U.S. Congress.
Soon after taking her first job as an esthetician, Debra Neill Baker realized she had too much energy to be in a room with one person at a time. She found herself carefully observed the relationship between the hairdresser and the client and soon made it her personal mission to help the salon and the stylist understand the power and influence they have through their clients. It’s a mission she continues today, as she helps lead Neill Corporation, the largest Aveda distributorship, the owner of SalonBiz software and the Paris Parker Salons, and the founder of Serious Business, an educational forum that draw more than 1,000 owners, managers and stylists each year.
At 29, Paula Malloy determined she was ready for the next step in her career and boldly sold her salon. For Malloy, the next step was Sebastian, where she worked first in sales, then as the brand’s education manager, and eventually adding the responsibility of heading the company’s research and development department. In 2003, the need to be closer to the energy of the salon and the working stylist led Malloy to her current role at JCPenney Salons. There she leads within the company’s salon division, which has 17,000 stylists, and she’s emerged as a leader within the industry as the first female president of the International Salon Spa Business Network.
In 1993, Jill Kohler jumped into the beauty industry as a marketing coordinator at Nexxus, but it was her next job as executive director of The Salon Association (now a branch of the PBA) that she credits with leading her to open her own cosmetology school. “My debt of gratitude is to the hundreds of intelligent salon and spa owners who pushed me, helped me and cajoled me to do things I never thought was possible. Even today, I hear so many of those owners’ voices as I am guiding and coaching students. Every single day my message to our 165+ students is ‘show up early, stay late, work harder and find a way to be a better version of yourself.’”
Serena Chreky might have entered the salon industry out of necessity when her husband Andre opened his own salon and asked for her help, sut she’s certainly made the most of the position. In addition to helping the salon get noticed by media, Chreky founded Salon-A-Thon, an annual 24-hour charity gala that to date has contributed $750,000 to the Children’s Hospital of Washington, D.C.; she was nominated to the board of The Salon Association, and then The Professional Beauty Association; and she established the Mid-Atlantic Salon Owners Network, a group of salon and spa owners from D.C., Maryland and Virginia who meet quarterly to discuss best business practices. And, she helped represented the U.S. in the Women Business Leaders Summit, a private outreach program supported by the U.S. State Department.
In her beginnings, Sydney Berry’s role as a stylist transitioned into the owner of Sydney’s Salon. After eight years, she decided to pursue a new role as a sales consultant for a distributorship. Today, she owns this distributorship—Salon Services and Supplies—with her husband, Miles Berry and George Learned. Berry has long been admired for helping her salon customers build successful businesses through Club 40 and her leadership role within the Professional Beauty Association has helped raise the professional bar within the industry.
FINALLY, THERE’S SOME SOLID EVIDENCE that the economy is recovering for the professional beauty industry. Professional Consultants & Resources, the leading strategic consultant and industry data source in the beauty industry, recently released its 2010 Professional Salon Industry Study, which reports overall salon industry growth at 4.5% and salon hair care growth at 4% in 2010.
Salon Today's editor-in-chief, Stacey Soble talks to Congresswoman Lois Capps about issues concerning the salon industry and small businesses.
