hile working as an investment banker in New York, Sean Walker heard of the investment and entrepreneurial opportunities in Africa from a former university classmate now living in SA. When he got here, he identified hair as an area in need of improvement and embarked on researching the local industry. It progressively became clear that training was the problem and through a number of people Sean spoke to, Kenneth Mokgosi was continuously cited as one of the best in the business. Ken has over 20 years experience in the industry having started hairdressing at the young age of 13 in the North West Province when he convinced a friend to let him help in a salon to make some money for school
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fees. He developed an interest in the profession and moved to Gauteng for formal training. He was the top student in his class and was selected to visit Denmark to share hair trends from an African perspective in 2005. A few years later, he was selected to travel to Chicago to earn his Global Assessor Certificate, along with other elite hairdressers from around the world. Ken and Sean felt that they shared the same vision of revolutionalising the ethnic hair market through high level training. They registered Royal Hairstyles Training Academy and Salon in 2010. “We called it Royal because we believe every woman’s hair is her crown,” Sean explains. “In 2011, we became only the second Sector
Education and Training Authority (SETA) accredited training academy in SA focused on Afro hair and we opened up our doors in the Johannesburg CBD to our first class in February 2012.” Royal Hairstyles’s full time class consists of 20 students as it is the intention of the two founders to provide individual attention to each student. They also offer short courses in various disciplines. The key techniques taught include cutting and styling, colouring, perming, relaxing and neutralising, dreadlocks and braids, shampooing and conditioning and extensions. They also teach business aspects to the learners as they aim to foster an entrepreneurial spirit amongst them to enable them to eventually run their own businesses.