Putting on training style
FORGET London and Leeds, Teesside will be turning the best well-coiffed heads if a Middlesbrough-based salon achieves its £5m-a-year expansion target including the launch of a training academy.
Award-winning husband and wife Alan Simpson and Karen Storr Simpson, partners in the Contemporary salon group, said the academy would put Teesside on the national training map.
They also aim to open four new salons within three years, creating around 60 jobs and boosting turnover from £2.9m to £5m.
Mr Simpson, who founded of the business in 1991 as Alan George, said local salons needed a higher standard of training.
“In this industry you can’t stand still because it is evolving all the time. I still go down to London each month to learn about new trends and techniques from experts such as L’Oreal,” he said.
The new academy will offer NVQ Level 2 and 3 qualifications to in-house staff and employees in other salons across the region.
Contemporary staff will also be offered an advanced, nine-week training course in latest styles and techniques.
The company operates as a franchise with eight salons in Tees Valley and North Yorkshire, employing 115 staff.
The partners, who married in 2001, own the holding company, Contemporary Franchise Ltd, and are franchisees in Middlesbrough and Guisborough.
They say their next move is to expand west into the Darlington area and possibly into Leeds.
The firm was re-branded in 2000 as Contemporary and was a regional finalist in the National Training Awards in 2002.
