Paula Kent Meehan, President and Executive Director

Paula Kent Meehan, founder of salon products manufacturer Redken Laboratories, initiated the Global Salon Business Awards in the spring of 2004 to honor the business achievements of salon professionals around the world. Having established herself as one of the foremost entrepreneurial leaders in the professional beauty products industry, Ms. Meehan has developed this awards program to recognize the leading salons for their business and entrepreneurial achievements and to encourage the industry to focus on business and management education. The second bi-ennial program was just successfully completed in Barcelona, Spain.

Ms. Meehan paved the way for the emerging phenomenon of women entrepreneurs when she launched her business career in 1960 by founding a small California-based company called Redken Laboratories with an initial investment of $3,000. At the time, women had yet to establish their leadership in what had been traditionally viewed as a ‘man’s world.’ Ms. Meehan forged her success through an entrepreneurial spirit that demonstrated the power of making a difference by meeting consumer demands. Her creativity and scientific approach to beauty included designing programs and training hairstylists to successfully market Redken products in the salon, as well as teaching chemistry to stylists, thereby enabling them to better serve their clients. Through her initiative, determination and innovative efforts, she built the company into a multi-million dollar enterprise, and more than 30 years later, she sold Redken Laboratories to L’Oreal.

Among the countless awards Ms. Meehan has received during her illustrious career are the “Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World” award in 2002; Entrepreneurial Woman magazine’s “Eight Most Powerful Woman Business Owners”; and she was selected as one of the “Top Fifty Women Business Owners” by Working Woman magazine.

Paula created the Global Business Salon Awards (GSBA) and the B.E.S.T. Foundation as a way of giving back, while continuing to work diligently on helping salon professionals to gain the respect and honor that they deserve as business leaders and entrepreneurs. The programs of the B.E.S.T Foundation are all centered on the concept of inspiring salon owners to engage in advanced business education in order to run, better and more successful businesses.

Anja Koch, Ambassador

Anja Koch has served as the European Ambassador for the Global Salon Business Awards (GSBA) and the B.E.S.T. Foundation since 2003. Acting as the liaison between many European and South American GSBA supporters as well as trade magazines and GSBA winners, Anja plays an integral role as the face of the GSBA to the European markets. Her fluent language skills in English, French, Spanish and Italian make her an invaluable asset to the GSBA.

In addition to her work with the GSBA, Anja is the Owner and Managing Director of K&K Consult Gmbh in Augustusburg, Germany and was also the Image Team Manager at Peek & Cloppenburg KG in Düsseldorf, Germany. Prior to that she held the position of Atelier Artistique Director for L`Oréal Deutschland in Düsseldorf, Germany, and spent three years as the as the Marketing Director of Hugo Boss AG in Metzingen, Germany.

Anja currently resides in Augustusburg, Germany where she enjoys spending time with her horses and dogs.

Jesseca McNeill, Global Program Administrator

Jesseca joined the B.E.S.T Foundation in 2007 after serving as an event coordinator for various fashion and marketing related events. During her time as a student at UCLA, Jesseca had the opportunity to travel extensively abroad, and has a strong interest and awareness in International events and cultures.  This has been further inspired after working with the top salon entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Having served her first year with the organization as program coordinator, she evolved into her role to overseeing the program, during the execution of the 2008 Global Salon Business Forum & Awards, in conjunction with founder Paula Kent Meehan, and Ambassador Anja Koch.