24. Ruth Roche on the Future of Hairdressing Education: Mentorship, Skills & Staying Creative

Hey everybody, welcome to The Connector, Intercoiffure America Canada's weekly podcast connecting salon owners and professionals with the leaders, artists, and innovators shaping the future of the professional salon industry. I'm your host, Gordon Miller, General Manager of Intercoiffure America Canada, the industry's only not-for-profit association representing employment-based salons across the U.S. and Canada. To learn more about us, head over to intercoiffure.com. Big reminder that the Intercoiffure Fall Atelier, the Tapestry of Beauty, is happening October 3rd through 5th in New York City, and it's just five short weeks away from today. A couple of speakers have been added. I've shared this on the last podcast, but in case you didn't hear it, the brilliant and most iconic Tabitha Coffey will be on the Tapestry main stage, thanks to Aura 300, our newest brand partner. And making his first appearance at the ICA Fall Atelier is renowned business coach and educator Jason Everett, founder of High Performance Salon Academy. And he's been brought to us courtesy of our friends at Bumble and Bumble. Remember, not too late to register or book your hotel room at our host hotel, the Midtown Hilton. Go to intercoffier.com. and go to the events page, look for the Atelier, and you'll find all the info that you need to register, as well as book a hotel, and all the information about the event itself, including a full agenda. All right, on to today's episode. I am so excited about today's guest. I have interviewed Ruth Roach on four different podcasts. It might be a record. American Salon Stories was the first time. Then we did twice on Hairbrain, once on Beautycast Networks, and now here we are on Inner Clefure's Connector podcast. I think it's a record for me and for Ruth, perhaps. There's a lot of history here. So Ruth is a seven-time Naha winner. By the way, AI helped me with that. Listeners know I'm obsessed with AI. She's an educator, former salon owner, platform artist, and someone whose career now spans four decades, Ruth. Four decades. Very early on, I have to mention this, and I try to keep intros a little bit tight, but it's not possible with Ruth. She worked with Trevor Sorbet. You know, great story there, one of the most influential hairdressers the industry has ever known. We first met when I was working at Pivot Point back in, I don't know, around 1990, you know, early 90s, I would guess is when it was. I can still see Ruth the first time I saw her in her combat boots. I was like, okay, who is this person? I want to know this person. We barely got to know each other, you know, barely in that era, but I'm proud to say I've gotten to know Ruth well over the years. And then has had this amazing career with Redken Purology. I remember Rare, the salon in New York City. Has done so, so very much. And is now really focused on independent education. Digital, I'm blown away with what Ruth is doing. Really kind of the workshop model online. I always wanted to talk about it during COVID, but I don't think very many have actually executed well on it. Ruth is stellar in that regard from everything I've seen. She's taken... grasping technology and