There weren’t a lot of men entering beauty college in 1939. When Dr. Nathaniel Bronner, Sr. took his seat at Apex cosmotology school in the Sweet Auburn district that year, he was the only male student in the class.
He didn’t talk much about the experience, not even to his family, but it was an important step toward his future success.
Inspired by women entrepreneurs in the black hair industry like Sarah Breedlove (aka Madam C.J. Walker) and Annie Malone, Bronner knew he needed to understand the business before building his own empire.
In 1947, he founded Bronner Bros. with his brother Arthur. With help from their sister Emma, they taught cosmetology at the Butler Street YMCA and held their first trade show in the basement with 40 exhibitors and 300 attendees.
Seven decades later, the Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show is the world’s largest trade show dedicated to multicultural beauty. On Feb. 10, the show returns to the Georgia World Congress Center.
James Bronner, the youngest of Nathaniel Bronner’s six sons, now oversees the show operations. The three day, bi-annual show, produced by a team of women, has changed quite a bit over the decades, but the company’s commitment to developing women entrepreneurs remains at the heart of what they do.
“My father had a heart for entrepreneurship,” Bronner said. “As African-Americans sometimes we have not had the same business training that some other cultures have been exposed to,” he said.
For stylists, owning a hair salon is the most likely path to becoming an entrepreneur, particularly for black women. A 2016 report from American Express Open found that African-American women are more likely than any other ethnic group to own hair/nail salons. “A lot of them graduate from being independent stylists to owning their own salons,” said James Bronner.
His father made it a point to encourage entrepreneurship among Bronner Bros. employees as well as among the stylists who came to their beauty shows.
“We launched 20 entrepreneurs out of the company because there was a culture of entrepreneurship. He didn’t try to hold on to people,” Bronner said.
From the very start, part of the mission of the trade shows was to provide training and education to stylists who wanted to become salon owners. “We had classes to teach them how to manage money, do accounting and market their business. That was one of the purposes of the shows, to give them the education they didn’t get in beauty school,” Bronner said.
In 2014, they began offering the “24-hour MBA,” a series of 24 one-hour audio sessions taught by 12 experts (including four Bronner brothers) designed to give aspiring entrepreneurs in any industry a crash course in business management.
But for hair stylists, the show continues to be an important resource for building and launching a business and after 71 years, the Bronners have had to continually change with the times and the trends.
Due to customer demand, they began offering interacive panels featuring experts on topics ranging from hair loss to financial management. This year, they have partnered with Beauty Cast to hold an on-site job fair.
Other highlights of the February show include a comedy show, a worship service with a special musical guest and the popular “Battle of the Schools” in which students from participating cosmetology schools battle it out for cash and prizes.
The most signifcant change for the company, however is still to come. From its inception, the face of the company has been male, but as the third generation of Bronners begin to assume roles in the business that is likely to change.
“In the third generation we have 30 and the majority of them are female,” Bronner said. “In the next 10 to 15 years, the female touch will be felt more.”
