Empowering Leaders.
Transforming Salons.
Leadership coaching for salon owners who want to transform their businesses into a profitable, sustainable, high-vibration environment.
The Industry Is Broken.
No one prepared you for
The team. The hiring
The onboarding. The payroll.
The culture.The marketing.
The lease.The taxes.
The drama.The growth.
The loneliness.
The constant decision making.
The responsibility of other people's livelihoods.
The transition away from your craft, where it all started.
For decades, salon owners have been handed the same narrow playbook: push productivity, hit quotas, keep overhead low, repeat. Stylists burnout. Culture erodes. Owners feel isolated and overwhelmed trying to hold it all together. Salons are stuck in a cycle of turnover and crisis management. The problem isn’t your ambition, it’s a system that was never built to support real leadership, sustainable growth, or human wellbeing. It’s time to build something better. No more bandaids on symptoms.
Your Salon Should Be A Sanctuary
I help overwhelmed, struggling salon owners transform chaotic, numbers-driven businesses into profitable, sustainable, high-vibration spaces where people actually want to work - and stay.
The key to a thriving salon isn’t policies or spreadsheets. It’s leadership. Leaders build culture. And when you fix leadership at the source, everything shifts: morale, retention, client loyalty, revenue.
When you center your stylists as artists and whole humans, give them both autonomy and structure, and lead with clarity and emotional intelligence, your salon becomes more than a workplace. It becomes a sanctuary. For your team, your clients, and you.
Hi, I’m Aja
I’m a stylist and the founder of MAE Salon + Wellness in Denver, Colorado. Over the last decade, I’ve built a career not just behind the chair, but as a mentor, coach, and community-builder.
I grew my business from a single suite, to a tiny three-chair salon, to a 2,300 sq ft wellness oasis and community hub.
I built MAE from the ground up. Not just the physical space, but the culture, values, and leadership structure behind it. No investment from Daddy. No safety net. Just hard work, a strong vision, and a commitment to doing things differently.
I could tell you about our six figure revenue, press accolades, or how we went from nothing to one of Denver’s top salons in just a few years.
But that’s not what I’m most proud of. What I’m proud of is our culture. Our stylist retention. Our fierce client loyalty. The sustainable business practices that allow artists and owners to thrive without burning out. A space that values artistry, independence, and human connection over quotas or speed.
And now, I want to help YOU do the same thing. I’m on a mission to disrupt a broken industry by helping one team at a time.
That’s what led me to found Rooted + Rising, a coaching-led container for salon owners owners ready to lead with clarity and build businesses that thrive emotionally and financially.
the WORK
Leadership isn't learned outside of the practice
Rooted + Rising works from inside real salons, alongside real owners navigating real challenges. This work happens inside real salons, alongside real teams, where leadership is lived and practiced daily. We refine your profit model, clarify roles and expectations, strengthen retention systems, and build leadership structures that support long-term growth. From compensation models to team accountability to culture repair, we focus on the operational and emotional foundations that actually move revenue. You’ll stop reacting to daily fires and start leading with strategy, stability, and vision.
Built For Your Salon
No generic frameworks. No one-size-fits-all mindset. No two salons are the same. Your team dynamics, leadership style, values, goals, and challenges deserve more than a recycled coaching framework. Every recommendation, system, and strategy is built around your specific salon, because sustainable growth only happens when solutions fit the people responsible for carrying them.
Sustainable Growth Without Survival Mode
I coach from inside the work, observing leadership in action, identifying breakdowns at the root, and fixing issues at the source. Together, we dismantle the outdated salon structure and replace it with models that prioritize people, profitability, and long-term sustainability. We focus on practical implementation that creates measurable change inside your business so you can break the cycle of burnout and turnover for good.
My Core Principles
My dedicated coaching for salon owners and proven formulas are based on three core principles:
Nobody teaches salon owners how to lead people, navigate conflict, build culture, manage growth, make hard decisions, and carry the weight of ownership all at the same time.
Before we rebuild your systems, we strengthen the leader responsible for carrying them. Because no strategy can outperform an exhausted, overwhelmed, or unsupported owner.
Leadership Before Strategy
1
It’s not the system, It’s the roadmap you never got!
Culture is the result of what you tolerate and model everyday. The mainstream salon structure is broken. It inhibits stylists from pursuing their true potential, while strangling profits for owners, keeping them drowning.
Together, we'll build the structures, expectations, communication habits, and accountability systems that create trust, clarity, consistency and sustainable abundance throughout your salon.
Culture By Design
2
Great teams don’t happen by accident.
3
Salon ownership can be incredibly rewarding.It can also be isolating, overwhelming, and relentlessly demanding.The weight of leadership is heavy when you're carrying every decision, every challenge, and everyone’s expectations.
This work isn't about handing you another workbook and wishing you luck. We personalize our approach to your specific pain points. Our work happens in your salon, alongside you, every step of the way.
Support Above Loneliness
Behind every salon is an overloaded owner.
Our Dedicated Coaching Services
Build your salon right, before you have to fix it. The self-lead step by step guide for aspiring salon owners who want to open with intention and strong leadership foundations in place. Culture, confidence, vision, and fewer costly mistakes.
This is a work book for where to start from the ground up.
The Culture Audit
This is a 90-day leadership intervention for owners in the thick of it. A focus on diagnosing root issues, rebuilding systems, and restoring authority. We’ll work together from the inside out to stabilize leadership, repair culture, and stop the cycle of burnout and turnover.
This contains in person, in your salon coaching to catch the things that get missed.
The Rooted Method
This program is for established owners ready to lead long-term without burnout. Focus on sustainability, team longevity, and refined leadership. Build a business that’s build to last and prosper.
This encompasses every
Rooted & Rising Legacy
Who our programs are for:
Salon owners experiencing burnout, high turnover, or instability, who are ready to build structure, clarity, and sustainable profitability.
Industry disruptors who want to challenge outdated salon models and create a more human-centered way of operating. But don’t know where to start.
Stylists stepping into ownership who want mentorship and leadership development from the start - not years of (expensive) trial and error.
Established owners who have financial success but know their culture, systems, or team dynamics need deeper alignment.
Visionary leaders who want to build profitable salons rooted in strong culture, empowered teams, and long-term sustainability.
