"The judging process, administered and coordinated by the UCLA Anderson School of Management's Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, was actually influenced by my personal experience, over many years, with the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® Awards, as well as the selection process of awards for excellence at the UCLA Anderson School," explains Dr. Alfred E. Osborne, Jr., Senior Associate Dean of the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  "Our goal here was to design an entirely independent and impartial process that would yield an objective assessment of the most successful entrepreneurs."  Sponsors and members of the B.E.S.T. Foundation and Salon Business Awards, Inc. do not participate as judges, and have no influence over any aspect of the judging process.

The Judging Summit will be held at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, situated on the picturesque grounds of the UCLA campus in Westwood, California. "The elite group of judges includes prominent business and academic leaders, industry business experts and key representatives from the professional trade press.  Each brings forth a unique perspective to the confidential, independent and impartial judging process," says B.E.S.T. Foundation President, Paula Kent Meehan.  "The backgrounds and experience of the judging panel are instrumental in helping us to unearth the "best-of-the best" as we identify the most successful entrepreneurial business leaders of the salon world."

Participating in the 2006 judging panel along with BTC's Mary Rector-Gable will be renowned UCLA faculty and business leaders, including: Dr. Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. (USA), Professor David Lewin (USA), Elaine Hagan (USA), Professor Eric Sussman (USA), Francisco Dos Santos (Brasil), Marx Cazenave (USA), Pamela Joyner (USA), and Professor Xavier Sala Martin (USA/Spain).

Industry Business Leaders include Alan Austin Smith (UK),  Charlie Miller (Scotland), Jane Aiko Yamano (Japan), Klaus Peter Ochs (Germany), Lluis Llongueras (Spain), Melissa Yamaguchi (USA), Neil Ducoff (USA), and Otto Sommer (Switzerland).

Trade Magazine Publishers and Editors serving as judges include Debra Carver (USA), Hubert Zieseniss (France), Jarl Garder (Norway), JoAnne Cowan (Australia), Kelley Donahue (USA), Maria Weijers (UK), Laurel Smoke (USA), Roberto Pissimiglia (Italy) and Sergi Bancells (Spain).

UCLA receives entry dossiers and inputs general information and financial data into a proprietary judging database.  Entries may be submitted in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.  Once received, the materials are translated into English, and all financial information is converted to US Dollars for comparison purposes.

UCLA sorts the data, based on a variety of pre-established financial productivity benchmarks.

Following the initial data sort, all entries that fall below the financial productivity benchmarks undergo a physical review to identify mitigating circumstances that may have affected their numbers. (i.e. significant investments or expansion, natural disasters, etc.).      

This phase includes the physical judging process by the judging panel.  Judges work in teams of three (3) people, with a member from each discipline:  academic or business, industry leader, trade press).  Judges review and discuss each entry at length, though they each score each entry individually. 

The scorecard data is entered into the proprietary judging database.  The judges do not decide "who wins" and, in fact, don't know who the winners are when they leave.  Entries are not compared or judged against each other; rather, each entry is evaluated and judged against previously established performance standards.  While the judges review the essays and physical materials provided they do not see any of the applicants' financial information.

Once the physical judging process is complete,  the results are input, and then  combined with the financial data to create a final entry score.  These scores are sorted electronically by country.  The entry with the highest score, exceeding the established performance standard in each area of judging criteria, is eligible for the Salon Entrepreneur of the Year Award, in either the independent or chain category, for that country. The salon with the next highest score in a given category, that also exceeds the performance standard score in each of the three individual areas of judging criteria, is eligible to win their country's Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for that category.  If no entries meet the performance standards in a given category, no award will be assigned.

 There are five potential awards per country:
 Salon Entrepreneur of the Year™ - Individual Salon Category
 Salon Entrepreneur of the Year™ - Chain Salon Category

 Entrepreneurial Excellence Award - Salon Leadership
 Entrepreneurial Excellence Award - Client Philosophy/Marketing
 Entrepreneurial Excellence Award - General Management

Once the scores are tabulated and potential winners are selected, a due diligence process confirms the accuracy of the entry, references and truth in disclosure statements. Following that process, the finalists are confirmed and notified that they are a Global Salon Business Award winner for their country, though they will not be advised of which award they will receive.

Winners of the 2006 Global Salon Business Awards will be announced at a gala ceremony during the Global Salon Business Forum & Awards, June 3-6, 2006 in Barcelona, Spain. The event, geared to hairdressing salon owners, is designed to provide attendees with up-to-the-minute entrepreneurial information  in the areas of general business management, leadership, marketing & promotion.  General attendance is very limited, so salon entrepreneurs are encouraged to register early.

To register for attendance visit www.salonbusinessawards.com