When Asia Kendra walks right into a room, she carries the boldness of somebody who has spent greater than a decade mastering her craft. However ask her what she’s most happy with, and she or he’ll let you know it’s not simply her movie star purchasers, viral transformations or profitable enterprise ventures. It’s primarily the folks she’s helped alongside the way in which.
Nonetheless, there’s no denying Kendra’s expertise.
Identified for her flawless installs, impeccable consideration to element and luxurious strategy to hairstyling, Kendra has develop into one of the sought-after hairstylists within the trade. From her former Brooklyn-based salon, AK Studios, she has constructed a repute for creating an expertise that goes far past hair.
From the second purchasers sit in her chair, they’re handled to a degree of care, professionalism and personalization that retains them coming again. For Kendra, each appointment is designed to make girls really feel assured, lovely and empowered.
“It’s extra than simply hair,” she stated. “It’s a protected house the place girls can chill out, discuss, reset and go away feeling like the perfect model of themselves.”
That philosophy has attracted a powerful roster of purchasers. Over time, Kendra has labored with a number of high-profile personalities, together with Jess Hilarious, co-host of The Breakfast Membership, in addition to Natalie Nunn, Physique By Raven, Sasha Keable, Joan Smalls and extra.
But regardless of her movie star success, Kendra’s story started very like many aspiring magnificence professionals.
A performing arts scholar with goals of singing, dancing and appearing, she found hairstyling as an adolescent at simply 16 years outdated in 2014 whereas attending LaGuardia Excessive College for the Performing Arts and shortly fell in love with the artistry behind it. Armed with dedication and numerous hours of self-teaching, she mastered wigs, weaves and hair coloring lengthy earlier than they grew to become mainstream magnificence staples.
Her expertise and entrepreneurial spirit finally led her to open her first salon suite across the age of 18, earlier than the salon suite mannequin was even popularized. Then at simply 22 years outdated, in 2020, on the top of the pandemic, she opened AK Studios, a thriving magnificence vacation spot that at one level housed 14 magnificence professionals throughout hair, nails, make-up, aesthetics, lashes and extra, a real one-stop store.
As a first-generation Trinidadian-American and the primary entrepreneur in her household, Kendra usually discovered herself navigating enterprise possession and not using a blueprint. The challenges she confronted taught her priceless classes about management, funds and private development.
At one of many lowest factors of her life, Kendra decided that will change all the things — she surrendered her life to Christ. That season of religion gave her permission to decelerate, step again from the chair and actually ask herself what she was known as to do past it. In that stillness, readability got here. She started to see what was lacking within the trade — not only for herself, however for therefore many others: proficient folks operating on empty with no monetary basis, no enterprise information and no actual neighborhood round them. She had lived that story. And as soon as she discovered readability by way of her religion, she felt known as to develop into the useful resource she by no means had.
At the moment, these experiences gasoline her ardour for mentorship.
After educating greater than 1,000 girls through the pandemic by way of hands-on hairstyling lessons, Kendra has shifted a lot of her focus towards schooling, teaching magnificence professionals on enterprise technique, customer support and monetary literacy.
In 2022, whereas operating one of the acknowledged hair manufacturers in New York Metropolis, Kendra launched AK Akademy, a completely digital college designed to assist magnificence professionals go far past their expertise and actually grasp the enterprise facet of the trade. “There are such a lot of gifted folks in magnificence who can carry out a service flawlessly however haven’t any basis in enterprise technique or monetary literacy, and with out that information, burnout is sort of inevitable,” Kendra explains. “I needed to succeed in folks earlier than they received to the place I used to be. I needed to be the individual I didn’t have.” Since its launch, AK Akademy has helped over 1,500 entrepreneurs by way of lessons, teaching and occasions.
She can also be growing packages to assist on a regular basis girls be taught inexpensive methods to keep up their hair and protect their magnificence investments.
Wanting forward, Kendra envisions opening a magnificence schooling academy and is increasing her talking platform and persevering with to create alternatives for others.
Kendra has spoken at a number of main magnificence and entrepreneurship occasions, together with one created by Caribbean dancehall artist Spice, the place she shared how she went from unknown hairstylist to constructing considered one of New York Metropolis’s most acknowledged hair manufacturers, and LEADHERship in Atlanta, the place she addressed over 300 girls on entrepreneurship and the techniques behind her success. Her influence has not gone unrecognized: she was formally awarded by the New York Metropolis Mayor’s Workplace and Metropolis Council for educating over 1,000 girls hairstyling and enterprise abilities, an honor she considers one of many defining moments of her profession.
And essentially the most bold chapter could also be simply starting. Kendra is now constructing BOSS Assist, a protected house and wellness neighborhood designed particularly for magnificence trade professionals who, very like her youthful self, have all of the expertise on this planet however no neighborhood, no mentor and no roadmap. A spot the place magnificence entrepreneurs can entry actual schooling, actual networking and actual reference to like-minded individuals who perceive the journey. “Group is what I used to be lacking most after I began,” she says. “I don’t need anybody else to need to determine it out alone.” For Asia Kendra, constructing that neighborhood is not only the following chapter; it’s the mission.
