Crowning an illustrious career at the sharp-end of Hair and Beauty practice, Nergish has become something of an industry icon in recent times. A fierce champion of better business performance and professional standards, Nergish is respected by industry greats and high street practitioners for her no-nonsense approach to raising salon, Spa & barbershop profitability via high-performance team develo
pment and great customer service delivery. She is also CEO and founder of the PHAB Service Stars– the personal care industry’s first, credible, performance-based industry benchmarking system – and a business training guru of very high renown. Nergish graduated from the Vidal Sassoon Academy in 1979 rising quickly from stylist to director of their Hong Kong salon by the age of 19 and simultaneously qualifying as a Beauty Therapist via the French Institute de Beauté-Elysee. In 1988 she moved to London and was appointed the youngest, first female general manager of all hairdressing concessions at Harrods, running the largest hair and beauty salon in the world with over 130 personnel. Her focus on quality improvement (including incentivised individual performance), creative marketing strategies, cost control and customer service delivered dramatic growth in revenue streams and increased profitability. She settled in Canada for 3 years in the early 1990s, where she married and worked as retail area manager at Holt Renfrew, Canada’s leading designer department store group. Nergish made her mark once again, negotiating better support from Product Houses and creating profitable sales campaigns that exceeded targets by 28%. Returning to London in 1994, she was appointed Essanelle regional manager, responsible for 24 prestige West End hair and beauty accounts, including Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Simpsons, Fenwick, Bentalls and Topshop, amongst others. By this point, Nergish’s belief in our industry’s potential, her frustration at the obvious ‘tricks being missed’ and her world-wide experience had grown into business plans. In 1999, Nergish formed hair and beauty management consultancy Jopirza Consultants, to specialise in delivering tailored services for increasing business professionalism and growth. Services included management training, salon & spa ‘mystery shops’ and audits, training DVDs, business ‘turn-arounds’ (focusing on creative revenue generation and cost reduction), performance reviews and establishment of business performance management metrics. Basically, if you wanted to turbo charge performance and 5 star service results you called Nergish into your business and it was sorted! For L’Oreal UK, Jopirza’s largest customer, Nergish trained prestige accounts including Saks, Toni & Guy, Charles Worthington, Nicky Clarke, Charlie Millar, Trevor Sorbie, Ho**er & Young, Dylan Bradshaw, and Daniel Hersheson. In 2006, she was invited to tailor these seminars for overseas markets, by L’Oreal Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and L’Oreal Middle East. Nergish was building a name for herself on the national and international stage. Since then she has been invited to speak at the largest events in Hair, Beauty, Spa and Wellness around the world! During covid lockdowns, Nergish has quickly grown an Online training business as well as a very popular coaching service with Austrailia, Canada and Ireland being her biggest customers. Now respected for her informed opinion and business acumen, Nergish has spoken at Fellowship of British Hairdressing events and appointed by UK colleges to offer career advice to graduating hair and beauty students. Hairdressers Journal ‘Salon International’ events and at Salon Smart, Olympia Beauty, Professional Beauty and has contributed to HJ’s Salon Business Extra forums. Since 2008, Nergish has sat on the panel of industry experts who judge the annual British Hairdressing Business Awards and is a regular judge at the Scratch Stars Awards. Most recently she has been asked to speak at Professional Beauty GCC & chair an education panel at World Spa & Wellness summit in Dubai. A concise and engaging writer, with ‘tell it like it is’ delivery, Nergish is also a regular columnist and contributor to leading trade publications, including Hairdressers Journal, HJI, Health and Beauty, Creative Head, Frizz, Professional Beauty, European Spa Magazine, Scratch, Scratch Middle East, Professional Hairdresser, Modern Barber, Barber Evo Magazine, Estetica and Salon Business. And that’s not the end of the story…
By the end of the ‘noughties’, Nergish knew that, for the hair, beauty nail and barbering industry to achieve global recognition and professional status, world-class technical skills would need to be matched by excellence in business performance and customer service. This wasn’t happening across the board and there was no way of differentiating fabulous performance from the run of the mill. So, in 2010, she founded PHAB Standard Ltd; the first and only performance-based benchmarking system to reveal the best stylists, colourists, barbers, beauty therapists, nail technicians and businesses based solely on business performance and customer service delivery. PHAB is an online British standard, piloted in the UK and Republic of Ireland, with global potential and it works because qualifying metrics include glowing client testimonials, high levels of repeat custom, strong retail sales and corroborating environmental and hygiene best practice checks. Thus, PHAB’s benefits span the industry, helping professionals prove performance, win jobs, negotiate salaries and control careers; helping employers identify and develop the best recruits for their businesses; helping businesses increase team productivity and profits and helping educators prepare students for success in salon life. And most importantly, customers get to identify the best salons, Spas, Barbershops and professionals for their hair and beauty needs. The PHAB Service Stars often get compared to the ‘Michelin star’ of our personal care industry! At its launch this system won an editorial ‘thumbs up’ from Good Housekeeping, The Diary and Layered Online! In fact, many of the industry greats – Trevor Sorbie, Angelo Seminara, Errol Douglas, Andrew Barton, Sean Taaffe, Gary Ho**er, Michael Young, Mark Leeson, Diana Jenner, Cheryl Walker, Chris Foster, Gill Morris, Tracey, Michael Van Clarke, Woodward and Samantha Sweet, to name but a few – are right behind PHAB, some advising and serving as members of the advisory board. Going forward, Nergish continues to help business managers to understand and use their performance data to drive business results. And trains salon, spa and barbershop practitioners in how to use their KPIs to drive results in their columns and dramatically increase their commissions! Appleby
