Rod Anker

Life story

Well I decided to look for adventure outside Australia, having grown up in country Victoria until I was about 14 living in Melbourne was a great start especially for my career however like a lot of people you get a little bit like, is this all there is to life and end up feeling restless. I don’t know if it was due to personal relationships or part of a bigger picture however I was drawn to making a life changing decision. Every night I would go home and search the Internet for something that grabbed my attention, sending resume’s to almost everyone is Asia I think. I recall getting a reply back from Kim Robinson in Hong Kong one morning early which in the next 24 hours that would change my life forever.
I was called by the Singaporean business manager of the brand who spoke to me in detail at about 7.30 am on the Wednesday and by the Sunday I was in Hong Kong meeting with Kim and returned on the Monday night with the only objective to pack up my things and tell everyone that this guy ( who would rarely change plans or do anything spontaneous ) was selling everything he owned and leaving Australia to go run Salons in China and India for the brand expansion.

The thought of living in India actually never really hit me, in fact I remember telling client that I was leaving and they would say, have you been to India ( which i hadn’t ) so i started searching on google, India, suddenly the reality set in the enormity of this decision.

I moved to Singapore where the brand has a Salon in Orchard road, a very upmarket Salon charging upward os 2,000US dollars for a cut with Kim himself, I had not been exposed to exclusive in Australia like there is in Asia, its a completely different market with incredibly different expectation than getting a beach house and the yearly holiday in Bali type lifestyle.

With the Salon construction in India and China delayed I ended up staying in Singapore for 12 months working 6 days a week 10 hours and was loving it, understanding the brand and the clients. Once the salon was ready in Singapore I moved there to launch it, in the Aman Hotel in summer palace which is a pure high end luxury hotel it was now up to me to make it work. It was incredible, I stayed in the hotel worked 7 days a week for the next 6 months until everything was running smoothly and left to launch the India salon.
I remember very clearly landing in India thinking to myself as the plane descended into a yellow haze of dust and pollution in the early evening that this is it, I have to make this work, it has to be a success I have walked away from a life in Australia this is it.
The Salon was not finished, Indian standard time is a little slower and once its done its done but it was already over 12 months delayed from internal issues with the local partner and the size and complexity of the construction.

We opened after 3 months of solid training the local team, priced at 80% higher than the most expensive in the country we were told it will never work and I will end up having to go back to Singapore. We had a PR company for the Hotel who after a while had very little “ new things” to talk about and constantly reached out to me for information and trend stories for media. It was pre instagram days so I was rampant on facebook sending friend requests to almost every journalist in the country ( sorry not sorry ) and then sending them stories directly that I felt needed to be talked about with hair. I would send articles printed out to Editors anonymously with a hand written note saying check this guy out.
It worked and the salon was buzzing, in profit and unlike every salon in the country we only did hair, most salons in India do beauty and makeup but as a brand we only did hair and it was working as it should. Proud to say most to this day I consider good friends and are still working closely together.

The hotel globally with over 27 resort hotels were breaking it up and selling it, keeping the Delhi hotel and rebranding and I had heard whispers of it, from the high end clients who seemed to know what was going on before anyone ( I guess small circles and in India everyone knows everyone ) I had so many thoughts going through my head, do I stay, if I have to go back to Australia I have failed and wasted 5 years, how can I stay here.

I was called into a meeting with the then GM of the hotel telling me that I was going on a “ local package “ which roughly translated to your salary is being reduced by 70% and we will not provide housing.
The previous month, a client who is a very successful businessman had helped me set up an Indian company in my name so no matter what I was safe to stay and start my own thing, not thinking that I would actually be doing it so soon, the day came. I will stay and start my own brand here, this is a success and I am not walking away, almost laughing saying it was impossible I was fuelled by the challenge and within 2 months and a lot of challenges we launched our first Salon in another Hotel about 40 minutes out of the city centre and it was again buzzing within the first month!

The challenge come, in India the buzz word was and still is somewhat “ investor” which can be a blessing and also can be a curse, i don’t really think in this situation it was either as it taught me so much, we got into an investor relationship and we then commenced opening salons until we had 9. Looking back it was only a few months after we started that there was a disconnect in terms of what we were trying to create and I was wanting to create change and quality in an equal opportunity style company ( very Australian and a little niave ) and he was wanting to expand rapidly and worry about training later as things grew. We did hair for fashion week, regular on TV and editorials for all national magazines.

On a personal note, I had had some interesting relationships and was single and invited to judge a Modelling contest, which I was not interested in doing but a friend had convinced me I needed to get out and be more social so i did. I remember downing 2-3 drinks within the first 30 minutes of being there to ease the pain. Half way through the Runway show, sitting at the end trying to act like I knew what I was doing, out walks this young woman that completely took my breathe away, she had short hair in my defence so I say that i noticed her hair then her but either way I was telling the other judges to give her a 10, she won. After it was over I got the courage to go and introduce myself, she was not interested in a conversation and basically gave me the cold shoulder, I handed her a card and said let me cut your hair. A week or so later and countless talking poking on facebook ( who even does that right ) we met and the rest is history, Ifell in love with Merrylin from day 1, she is the most solid person I have met in my life with integrity and ethics that make you want to be a better person. Meeting Merrylin literally gave me a strength to start bringing everything back in order the way it should be and that I could do what was right and it would work. We moved in together and it was as if now i knew why I had come to India, life made sense.

I sold my shareholding in that company amicably and started our new Brand together Rod Anker Salons in central Delhi.

We have a client list that is the who’s who of not only Bollywood but political leaders and CEO’s, regularly shooting for TV and Editorials and loving what we are doing with a Team of people that have the same passion as I do. Our Strength has come from integrity with a growing following on Social media we have majority of our clients booking via instagram and facebook vs calling the salon. Its been a little over a year now and we are not in any hurry to expand at this stage unless its the right fit for not only the brand but for the integrity of the brand. We pride ourselves in being true to who we are and whilst we at times get some negative feedback for the way we communicate on social media have connected with the growing Indian market that sets to have the largest population under 25 in the world by 2020.