How Stefan Ackerie helped build Gold Coast into boating mecca
Hair salon mogul Stefan Ackerie shares his secrets to making sales and winning people over after 60 years in the trade. ‘She started crying and I thought ‘What have I done?’. Read the Stefan way.
Gold Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Gold Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It should be no surprise that Stefan Ackerie helped the Gold Coast discover itself as the boating capital of Australia.
After all, this king of personal transformation has worked his magic not just on the scalps of tens of thousands of clients, but on his own life as well – from hairdressing mogul to champion power boat racer. It’s how he earned his title ‘the barber of boating’.
And while the 83-year-old might long have been associated with Brisbane, establishing the iconic Jojo’s restaurant and even buying legendary Expo 88 relic the Skyneedle, he now permanently resides right where he belongs – in our colourful city.
With his penchant for rainbows and bright pink, it’s little wonder the Coast is a perfect fit … besides, he helped build it that way.
NEED FOR SPEED - AND LOVE FOR POWER BOATING
Preparing for the 35th Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show – and Stefan has attended every single one – SCIBS general manager Johan Hasser said the city would not be the heart of boat manufacturing, nor would the Gold Coast City Marina be the market force it is now, were it not for patriarchal patrons like Stefan or close friend, Maritimo founder and boating industry legend Bill Barry-Cotter. While that duo are considered the godfathers of Gold Coast boating, they were also once fierce rivals, with the pair neck and neck in a 90-mile race back in 2002 when Stefan clinched the win … and he said Barry-Cotter didn’t speak to him for three months afterwards.
“I was the one who first convinced him he should get into racing, but he wasn’t too pleased that day. He’d just bought that boat for millions,” laughed Stefan, who won six Australian Offshore Power Boat Racing Championships.
“He ended up making big changes to how he raced because he said he got sick of smelling my exhaust for three years.”
That exhaust, of course, came from Stefan’s iconic pink boat. Because while the octogenarian has made headlines for decades for dozens of different topics, there has always been one uniting theme: he likes to stand out.
‘FANCY’ GOLD COAST - THAT SOUNDS GOOD TO ME
In fact, back in the early 1960s, before he started constructing his salon empire, it was that characteristic that tempted him to make the move to the Sunshine State.
“The salon that I was working for asked me a favour, would I move to Queensland?” he said.
“I said that’s not a favour, I want to go there … I want to see the Gold Coast.”
When asked why he was so interested in this city, not much more than a seaside holiday town back then, his answer was classic Stefan.
“I just liked the name: the Gold Coast. It was fancy.”
And from the moment he arrived, people took notice.
“I remember driving from the Gold Coast to Brisbane along Logan Road, there was no highway then,” he said.
“I was in my blue sports car and everyone was looking at me and waving, I thought ‘this is great’. Then I realised they were looking at the car and I was the one waving first, they were just waving back. But it’s been like that ever since.”
Now seated at the Dragon Cove restaurant in Sanctuary Cove, people are still staring at Stefan – and he’s still waving.
He’s made this northern Gold Coast suburb his home and while this will be his first year not being an active exhibitor in its Boat Show, he’ll no doubt still capture attention as he sips champagne on the deck of his 100ft yacht.
After 35 years at the Boat Show, and an incredible 60 years since he opened his first salon, much has changed in Stefan’s world … yet he’s still hands-on, cutting hair regularly at the Stefan Hair Academy, making appearances on television and opening yet more salons in a franchise that is now 40-strong, employs hundreds and has long been Australia’s largest salon chain.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS BEFORE HAIR SALON EMPIRE EXPLODED
At its peak, he was operating more than 80 salons across the country, and he’s still not quite sure how he handled it. But then, much of his history is remarkable. Indeed, like any good character known by only a mononym, Stefan’s origin story is legendary.
He arrived in Australia from Lebanon in 1957, aged 14, and settled in Adelaide. His father was a hairdresser and he was given his first barber ‘box’, a footstool so he could reach the top of heads, at age six. He worked with his father briefly in Adelaide but decided at the age of 19 it was time to move on.
“I don’t know how I knew but I did. I had a nice shop, a beautiful sports car, ambeautiful home … but I wanted more, so I went to Melbourne,” he said.
Once there, he decided to apply for his hairdressing apprenticeship from the prestigious Melbourne Hair Academy. He had already completed his apprenticeship in South Australia, but that school didn’t ‘have much of an image’, so he thought he’d earn it from this flashier institution.
Classic Stefan. In fact, what happened when he attended that school says much about why Stefan became so successful.
‘SHE STARTED CRYING - I THOUGHT WHAT HAVE I DONE’
“I met the boss and I said to her, ‘you have such beautifully coloured, silky hair’,” he recounted.
“She started crying, and I thought ‘what have I done? What have I said’?
“But she told me that all her life she had been told she had oily, fine, limp hair. But now, because of what I had said, she would go to sleep that night thinking she had beautiful, silky, blonde hair.
“After talking to her for an hour, she told me there was nothing they could teach me, I already knew it, so to keep moving on with my life.”
In discovering her secret beauty, Stefan discovered his secret skill – sincerity in sales.
It was that talent which saved his business after opening his first self-named salon in Maryborough.
“The bank manager told me there’s more money in the bank in Maryborough than anywhere else, so what better place to set up shop?” he said.
“But I soon found out why that was … because the people there wouldn’t spend a cent.
“Customers would come in and ask how much for a haircut, I’d tell them 66 cents. They said they could get it down the road for 55 cents … so I said, well, go down the road then. And they did!
“Months later I was about to go broke. So I’m lying in bed wracking my brain how I’m going to recover and I remembered my grandfather always said ‘don’t spoil your name’. I got some butcher paper and I wrote: ‘free haircuts, no gimmicks, no tricks, just free haircuts. Let us show you how good we are’.
“Seven weeks later, the shop was full. They knew I wasn’t a conman, and my name was saved.”
Next came a salon in Maryborough, and then a shop became available in Adelaide Street, Brisbane.
Within months it, too, was a roaring success. Then came the next brainwave.
“I had an idea I could get myself on TV,” he said.
“I talked channel 9 into letting me get a program, it took about four months of negotiations but finally they agreed to do a pilot for 13 weeks. That’s how Discover Yourself with Stefan was born.
“And 35 years later, it’s still going.”
While he remains the undisputed salon king of Australia, as well as a legend of the boating industry, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Stefan. The pandemic was a particularly tough time for the hair and beauty industry, with salons shuttered and workers unable to reach more remote or regional salons.
Stefan said the business shrank down to about 35 salons at its smallest, while the workforce dropped from 650 to 350. He said numbers were increasing again, with four new salons about to open, but Covid wasn’t the end of tough times.
In 2022, Stefan’s Brisbane head office was flooded during a massive rainfall event.
“There have been difficult moments, but you keep focus on keeping the operation going, keep it together, don’t worry about how big you are,” he said.
“We’re back up to about 40 salons now, with more to come, and I think somewhere in the 40s is about right for Queensland.”
Throughout his colourful career, Stefan has also been a stalwart community supporter and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his significant service to business and support for charitable organisations.
But, were it not for his father, would he still have found his way to becoming the salon king of Australia?
“No, of course not,” he laughed. “I was born into the system.”
So what might have he become?
“I’d have done real estate. And probably still bought boats.”
And, undoubtedly, Stefan would still have ended up where he belongs … on the Gold Coast.
Locals divided over proposed changes to creek-side park
Gold Coast locals are divided over a potential upgrade to one of the most used parks in the city’s south, with some saying they “can’t stand the idea” of the proposed plans.
Man’s ‘miraculous’ recovery after Gold Coast nightmare
A family dinner took a terrifying turn when Denis Duffy suffered a cardiac arrest, relying on his stepdaughter’s quick-thinking during a harrowing 30-minute ordeal. Here’s what happened next.