DIAGNOSED with dyslexia in primary school and dropping out of high school in Year Eight, Kate Brown has worked hard to forge her success.
"In Grade 6 it was understood I didn't know how to read or write, and by the time I got to Year 7, I was really struggling and mum and dad, being hardworking and modest, just thought, 'Maybe you are better off as a worker'," recalls Ms Brown, now 35.
This year, her Honeysuckle business Enigma Hair + Body is marking 10 years of trade and Ms Brown will also graduate with a Bachelor of Law/Honours and a Bachelor of Political Science and International Relations.
Her decision to study law was fuelled by a stressful experience when she says she was "young, naive and ill-equipped to understand business", and a desire to encourage other women to gain power through education.
"I was feeling useless, powerless, tramped over, never taken seriously, for me it's such a delight to have that powerful ability to speak and with intelligence and knowing what you are talking about, it's so important to instil that in people around me," she says.
Raised in Warners Bay, the middle child of a father who worked at OneSteel and a mother in retail, Ms Brown left school in Year 8 and did a hospitality diploma before landing a hairdressing apprenticeship at 15.
She worked at a salon at The Junction having already learned the ropes of hairdressing working on weekends for her aunt, who ran a home salon in Edgeworth: "She taught me all the basics I needed, and my nan would drive me to work, job interviews, whatever - she was my biggest influence."
Finishing her apprenticeship at a Swansea salon, Ms Brown moved to Darwin with her boyfriend, then in the military. When he was posted away at length, she worked in a salon and then began her own home salon, seeing a niche to style the hair of air hostesses.
"They leave Brisbane and get in at 4am in Darwin and have a five or six hour layover before they fly back, with nothing to do at 4am so I was like, 'OK, get off, get your cab here, and I would start hair from 430am," she says. "It was the best business idea I ever had. It was more a cash cow - I wanted to buy a salon, I didn't have parents to ask for money from."
Returning to Newcastle in 2012, she bought an existing hair salon business, rebranded it as Enigma Hair + Body and tweaked the business model, and signed a five-year commercial lease.
Over time, she felt like she was being poorly treated by the lease manager.
"They would access the property whenever ... I didn't understand my contract and when I attempted to get clarity and fairness, I was fobbed off," she recalls.
The relationship was strained by the time she exited the lease, but she was lucky to have a friend that loaned her money (which she has repaid) to move to her current Honeysuckle site in 2017.
By then, she had decided to prepare to do Year 12 via the Open Foundation path at the University of Newcastle, spurred into action by her lease experience.
" I felt like they thought that I was an idiot, I was trying to communicate but my composing of emails was so hard, I thought, 'No-one will take me serious'. The study was totally because of that situation," she said.
"I decided to study and got tutoring. I could read and write basically but I didn't know how to structure a sentence and had poor spelling, so she taught me the foundations, then I did Open Foundation."
Ms Brown needed to get an ATAR of 92 to do law and after receiving an ATAR of 96 in the Open Foundation program she enrolled in her law degree. She is on track to finish her degree at the end of the year and is doing her practise work with a Hunter barrister.
She will continue to run her hair salon business and plans to use her degree to be an advocate for women in business, particularly those in the hair industry, to help them understand their rights.
"I have noticed a lot of people in my industry usually don't have the highest education because we have chosen a training program over schooling, I've encouraged my staff to study as well as work for me, so they feel empowered," she says.
"People assume hair dressers are quite dumb and I want to help them understand their rights, commercial leases, leases with suppliers, their employee rights, just general business things. Law gives you a holistic understanding of things, WHS, business, even reading an award rate correctly."
Enigma has ridden the pandemic thanks to a helpful landlord - "I got all my karma and luck back with him, he's been the best landlord" - and though it suffered financially, it continues to flourish.
Ms Brown has 14 staff and offers in-house training to help them grow.
Over her decade in business, 11 of her previous staff have left to form their own businesses.
"It's been awesome, I feel like once the staff come in they build confidence and I believe in them and believe they can do it too. They have to have their own power in themselves but I think they have started on my encouragement," she says.
She believes her business is prosperous because of its energy and culture.
"There's no hierarchy, no boss - yes, there's an owner but there are no levels. It's positive and encouraging and I think that is what rubs off on the clientele. They see great energy," she says.
"We take on people with no training and or those who have been at high end salons - it doesn't matter who you are, you are good enough to be here."
She know that the industry is seen as frivolous but she knows equally that there is good business in ensuring clients feel their best.
"Our company motto is professional salon service, expert industry knowledge and authentic client care. It's having someone come in and feel important, expensive, listened to, like a Royal!'" she says.
"I don't have time, I never get my hair done, but when I do I go to a place in the Hunter Valley and when I walk in I'm like Queen Kate.
"I always say to my team, people work their jobs and choose to spend their money here, we need to be thankful for that, for most people it's not an everyday luxury."
As a hard worker who is money conscious, she says "we need to make clients feel like it is worth every cent", irrespective of their wealth.
