Dana White: The First Black Woman to Franchise a National Hair Salon
December 13, 2021Travel Noire
Parker Diakite
Dec. 10, 2021
Dana White has become the first Black woman to franchise a hair salon business after launching a national campaign to do so.
Yes, in 2021 we are still celebrating the first Black woman to achieve great things.
White is the chief executive officer and founder of Paralee Boyd in Detroit, a beauty salon model created in 2012 as a solution to getting people out in a timely manner while maintaining the quality of the hair.
During an interview with Forbes, White says one of the biggest complaints from clients across the hair industry is spending all day in the salon. Her company uses a tech principle inspired by the automotive industry known as “lean manufacturing.”
Lean manufacturing is a production method aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. It is derived from Toyota’s 1930 operating model “The Toyota Way.”
This model has allowed White to create a hair salon where clients can get in and out within a certain time all while keeping the prices low.
“Why do something in four steps when you can do it in one or two?” she said.
White adds, “I opened Paralee Boyd to solve for a problem that women with thick and curly hair were facing everywhere. I wanted to create a space that provided quality hair care, was timely, and committed to customer service. Like several of us, I had grown tired of spending my Saturdays in hair salons.”
The salon is named after the maternal grandmother of White. Paralee Boyd grew up in Camp Branch, Kentucky, and she was the first generation not to work as a domestic worker for the same family that had employed and enslaved her family since 1821.
“Paralee was a beautiful woman,” White says. “Known in her community as someone everyone can talk to, her ear and her kitchen were always open. It was said that you always left her home feeling better than when you entered it. We try to embody that same feeling with our guests in her name.”
For more information or to book an appointment, click here to be directed to the company’s website.