Every entrepreneur has a start-up story. And Joyce Tsang’s started from a small beauty bed, which finally developed into a huge beauty kingdom.
Joyce Tsang, the Asian Queen of Beauty, is the Founder and CEO of Modern Beauty Salon Holdings Limited, which is the biggest “Beauty Kingdom” in Asia, with headquarter established in Hong Kong and branches spread in Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Over 2000 employees are working in this kingdom. No one has ever imagined that this huge beauty empire was budded from a tiny beauty bed 30 years ago.
In 1986, with merely 30,000 HK dollars, Joyce Tsang started her beauty career in a 100 sq. feet shop in which there were only two beauty beds. As a new comer of the beauty industry, Joyce at first could not manage the aesthetic skills. She observed the skill of another beauty technician, who rented one of the two beds to do business at that time. Joyce, who was good at simulating and turning the merits of others into hers, quickly gained a lot of advantages. With professional skills and diligence, her business soon prospered. Forthwith, she moved into a bigger shop soon. In order to expand the business, she found two partners. After the integration of the two companies, the customers increased. To provide more and better services for them, Joyce kept on paying continuous effort to aquire more aesthetic skills like eyebrow tattoo which she did not know originally. She also kept an open mind and listened to the opinions of customers to improve her service.
Her industrious attitude made the business keep on blooming. She not only wanted to provide facial services but also some other services which was new to the beauty industry. She always stayed proactive to take the lead in creating new treatments out
of her spirit of innovation at the then homogeneous market for customers. In 1994, she led the way in introducing hair-removing service which soon became a smash hit in the city. Apart from this groundbreaking service, Joyce also introduced a new payment method for the industry by which her customers could pay by installments with credit card. This was a pioneering practice in the whole beauty industry.
Besides pioneering spirit, her ingenuity was also a key to success. In 2003, when the epidemic, SARS, raged through Hong Kong, all businesses languished. While the business seemed to be on the verge of declination, Joyce soon implemented a series of practices to lure back the customers’ confidence. She required all her beauty technicians to wear surgical gowns and masks and all her shops and the equipment inside were sterilized with disinfectant once every hour. With these comprehensive practices supplemented with “SARS promotion”, she won back many customers, especially those who had purchased pre-payment package tickets.
With creativity and proactivity, the business kept on expanding. In just two decades, Modern Beauty became the first beauty enterprise listed on the main board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company gained momentum and sprinted out of Hong Kong, spreading branches to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing in Mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia. In 2014, the Taiwanese market was also entered with the opening of the Group’s first beauty and spa centre in Taipei City. Modern Beauty rose up and blossomed throughout Asia and became a beauty Kingdom while Joyce, undoubtedly, came to the throne of the Asian Queen of Beauty.
Her achievement and efforts were extensively appreciated. Over the years, the Modern Beauty Group and Joyce Tsang herself received countless awards and honour among which many are significant. For example, in 2007, the corporation was accredited as “Asia’s 200 Best Under A Billion” by Forbes Magazine. In 2011, Joyce was awarded the “APEC Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2011”. In 2012, Joyce received overseas awards including “The President’s Volunteer Services Award”, “Congratulatory Letter of the White House Washington” as well as the “US President Volunteer Service Award Medal”. She was deeply honoured to receive another personal award in 2013 which was the “Outstanding Business Woman of the Year” by Capital Entrepreneur in Entrepreneur Night. In 2015, she was recognized by the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, receiving the Medal of Honour from the Chief Executive, the highest leader of the region. All the honours above showed that Joyce’s efforts and achievement were recognized both regionally and internationally. The crown of the queen was glittering with many precious gems.
But the queen was no princess in the past. Born in a poor and distressed family, Miss Tsang’s childhood was really a hardship. Even though her father had a fine income working as a sub- contractor in a drainage firm, however, he spent most money on gambling, prostitution and alcohol. Although every month he would allow a sum for household expenses at the beginning, he would take them back by the end. The family of seven was so poor that they had to be cramped in a cubicle of about 150 sq. feet.
To raise up five children, Ms. Tsang’s mother, who grew up in an affluent family, had to work from dawn till dusk to earn a living.
Due to poverty, Joyce dropped out of school during her second year in high school and had taken up many jobs including factory worker, salesgirl and waitress. She also once sold cigarettes and promoted cosmetics in the department store. Actually, as early as when she was seven, in order to earn more for the family, she had even worked in a stall selling poultry in a wet market during summer vacation. The early life of Joyce was really not easy but she still saved some money to buy herself some cosmetics such as face powder and perfume when she was in her teens. Her inherent love of beauty became the direction of her career path. Finally, Joyce braved the winds and waves and hewed out a career for herself. And nowadays, Modern Beauty Kingdom, with the highest market value of over 2 billion HK dollars, has over ten brands and over 200 sales points scattered throughout Asia. Joyce Tsang, undoubtedly, passes for the Asian Queen of Beauty.
From a bed to an empire. From a girl to an entrepreneur. From a humble beginning to a glittering career. This might sound like the magic casted on Cinderella, whereas it is a reality instead. And the magic was played by no one else but Joyce Tsang herself. Cinderella relied on the magic of the fairy while Joyce depended on herself. With perseverance, creativity and proactivity, she not only changed her fate but also transformed the impossible into the miraculous Kingdom of Modern Beauty, the modern legend of Cinderella.
