After moving back to Chicago a few years ago, Alex Brown opened up "Space by Alex Brown" - a freelance studio designed to house some of Chicago’s top artists in the Beauty Industry. Kaitlin Armon sits down with Alex to talk about her incredible journey and the lessons learned along the way.
Alex shares with Kaitlin how she went from a girl growing up in a small Minnesota town knowing instinctively that she was meant to be in the beauty industry to taking a giant leap of faith and starting her “big city girl life” in Chicago.
She goes on to share the details of her incredible journey from studying hair in Chicago to assisting Jen Atkin in LA as they worked on countless celebrities taking her all across the globe then back to Chicago to strike out on her own. 
Together they talk about what success means to them, how to discover what it is you truly want, and why they both do what they do.
“Helping others is my calling in life. I love that feeling, which is probably why I'm a hairstylist. ‘Cause I love making people feel great and helping other people in any way.”
Alex goes on to tell Kaitlin all about her events called “Cocktails and collaboration” and how she’s working on building a strong collaborative beauty community here in Chicago.
Join us on this episode of the Alined podcast as Kaitlin and Alex talk about business, hair, life, and everything in between.
Kaitlin Armor is on a mission to empower professionals in the salon industry. A Chicago suburb native, Kaitlin has several years of experience managing full-service salons with a teams of up to 40 employees that she coached to provide excellent services and achieve high goals. She wants to see the younger generation graduating from cosmetology schools enter into a career field with higher motivation, higher commitment, and higher salary expectations.
Her dad serves as her inspiration, coaching and motivating her from day one to be a good businesswoman with strong values. It’s safe to say that her dad was successful in teaching her these skills. While Kaitlin was working at Nordstrom before Salon 1800, she set a company-wide record for the highest-grossing sales event in a seven-day period. When she’s not managing the salon and coaching her 40 person team, Katilin works with Direct Effect Charities. She organizes her staff to participate in Letters for Santa and their Backpacks drive. Despite the fact that this year those drives cannot happen, they’re still giving back and doing a gift card drive during the holiday season.
