JENNIFER ASHTON
who recently completed her degree in Accountancy and Financial Management with Business Management at the
University of Sheffield Management School, is already making her career ambitions a reality
Jennifer came up with the idea of setting up her own hair and beauty salon and franchise business specialising in hair and skin treatments for people from the Afro-Caribbean community whilst studying for her degree.
It began when she couldn’t find a suitable salon herself. She said “I started doing my own hair and then started getting a lot of interest from people, either from the African Caribbean Society at the University, or customers at Tesco, where I work part-time as duty manager.” This led to her offering a mobile hairdressing service and developing a plan for her own business, called Kolours.
She was encouraged to pitch the idea for her business at an event organised by the Yorkshire Association of Business Angels with hopes of winning the support and funding needed to make her idea a reality. The event was attended by potential investors and members of the professional services community and the initial prize was mentoring from one of the experienced Business Angels.
Jennifer won the YABA competition and then, equipped with the
expertise from her studies and the support provided by her mentor, went on to enter and win the University of Sheffield Business Planning competition in conjunction with Santander bank. Beating around 200 entrants, Jennifer was awarded £2,000, which she is now using to get formal hair and beauty skills qualifications while looking for premises for her first “Kolours” salon.
Whilst Jennifer describes her time at the University of Sheffield as having been “amazing”, she is looking forward to putting what she has learnt into practice in her new venture. She says that there are three valuable lessons she has learnt from her experience: “Researching your idea will be key to your success. I have also learnt that networking is very important in business, as is trimming all the fat and focussing on key details when pitching to potential investors.”
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