Deadly Hair Dude Gary Strachan is the 2024 National Small Business Champion

The founder of a not-for-profit business training remote Indigenous people how to cut, colour and style hair has won National Small Business Champion at the 2024 Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) summit in Sydney.

Recognising small business influencers making a genuine difference to their industry and the sector, this year’s award went to the Northern Territory’s Deadly Hair Dude Gary Strachan.

Strachan accepted the award at the National Small Business Summit’s gala dinner on Tuesday night, in front of the Small Business Minister Julie Collins MP and industry peers.

Deadly Hair Dude provides training to remote Indigenous youth in the Northern Territory.

Its goal is to help Indigenous people gain meaningful employment, with training providing skills and increased self-confidence and self-esteem, while also improving the socio-economic status of remote Indigenous people.

Speaking to SmartCompany from the summit in Sydney, Darwin-based Strachan said the surprise honour was valuable recognition for the more than 200 hairdressing students the business has trained since being founded in August 2020.

“We wanted to take people who had a risk of going into the criminal justice system and give them a pathway to an alternative future. The average person has plenty of opportunities for employment, but young Indigenous people typically have few, we wanted to change that.”

“I had been a hairdresser for 44 years and wanted to give something back. I wanted to make a real contribution to society. Giving a homeless person with drug issues who had lost her children a job, an employment opportunity that helps her find somewhere to live and get her children back, these experiences have been the highlight of my career.”

After initially focusing on hairdressing, Deadly Hair Dude is now looking at other ways to help close the gap and improve Indigenous life expectancy, beginning with horticulture training.

Gary Strachan’s honour comes after hairdressing leader Sandy Chong won last year’s award.