Never, Never Quit

Businessman Stefan Ackerie is a household name in Australia, thanks to his vibrant rainbow branded chain of more than 50 ‘Stefan’ hairdressing salons around the country. A lifelong boat lover, he owns 31m Rainbow Rose and has just launched a new business, Stefan Boating World, which aims to bring affordable boating to Australia.

It took me months to pin down Ackerie but when we finally sat down to talk, this made sense: with so many projects on the go and a real enthusiasm for life, it’s a wonder he had time for the interview at all. Having done my research before the interview, a portrait of a fascinating character had emerged and I was dying to speak with the man himself. The day we spoke, Ackerie had just returned from a celebratory lunch for winners of the prestigious Ethnic Business Awards, which he won 21 years ago in 1992, and was reflective and proud of the achievement. “Back when I received the award, I was young and busy and didn’t appreciate how much of a big deal it was,” he said.


Ackerie’s story really starts in 1957 when he arrived in Australia from Lebanon, aged 17, and began work as an apprentice in his father’s hair salon. Ambitious and driven, by 1959 he owned his first salon and having formally founded ‘Stefan Hair Fashions’ in 1968, by 1970 they numbered 20, by 1979 30, and today his salon portfolio totals more than 50.  The growth rate of his business is remarkable and a testament to his work ethic. “People say to me – ‘hairdressing’s easy, everyone needs to have their hair cut’ – but I’m not the only haircutter in the world: in Australia alone there are 6000 hairdressing salons” he said.


A motto often used in the Stefan branding is “Believe in yourself and never, never quit.” I asked what he thought the key to his business success was: “If you don’t believe in yourself and you quit, then it can’t happen because life is a journey,” he said. “Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s tough, sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes it’s raining and sometimes there’s a pothole in the road. Sometimes you get a flat tyre and sometimes you blow up your engine, you’ve just got to keep moving. But the main secret to success is you must have a nice team of people that believe in your vision and want to be part of the journey with you. If they don’t believe then it can’t work, if they’re not happy then it can’t work. If they don’t respect you and you don’t respect them it doesn’t work.”

The importance of team was a theme we returned to several times in the interview, and this is something Ackerie feels very strongly about. “You are nothing without your staff,” he said. “So many people think the hero is the person and the name. It’s not; the hero is the people who make it happen. Your team is priceless and so many people think they can do it alone and they can’t. If you have a great team, well you deserve success, if you don’t then don’t complain, or make one.”

On the highs and lows of his career as a businessman: “The highs is where I am now. The lows, I’m proud to say I don’t have many,” he said. “You always have incidents in life. For example there was no electricity in Brisbane for six months and that did incredible damage… but we managed to cope and survive. Imagine having a business with 500 staff and having no electricity for six months. That was a low. Some lows you cause, some are caused for you and they are worse because you say ‘I didn’t do this’ but I guess when you are driving a car in the road and you hit a pothole, just because you don’t see it, you can’t say ‘I didn’t put the pot hole there’, you should have seen it. No one escapes, we all have something happen to us.”

Along with hair and his business, boats have always been Ackerie’s second passion. “My very first boat was a Lewis Skiff. At 17 when I had no money I still bought the Lewis, it was an amazing boat,” he said. “I am Phoenician, and it’s in our DNA to be boat people. My father loved boats and I like boats and I have been fortunate to race boats for 30 years.”

Ackerie’s passion for boating got really serious when he began offshore powerboat racing in 1985, kick starting a 30-year career in power boat racing, that included six national titles. This led to his first experience of building a boat, when he got involved in the design of a new racing cat, named Stefan Shampoo. “It was a brand new design from Italy and was way, way ahead of it’s time,” he said. “It was half airplane half boat, it half floated and half flew: with a cat if the wing design is clever in the middle you actually lift and when you land you it’s not like a stone hitting the water, it’s like cotton hitting the water.” With Stefan Shampoo complete, Ackerie followed the racing circuit around the world, enjoying repeated racing success, and “had a fantastic time.”


Skip forward many years, and the next boat building project was a big and radical 25.5m lightweight catamaran design, which on her launch in 2011 was named Hairazor. The project had started life as the brainchild of another businessman who, having spent 2 million on the project, went bust. Some time later Ackerie stepped in and bought the hull and built it as a lightweight and fuel-efficient new build. Hairazor was completed in 2011, where she debuted at the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show (SCIBS), and was bought not long after by a New Zealander who owned an American-built superyacht called Barbarina. “We negotiated a deal, and he finished up with my Hairazor and I finished up with Barbarina,” said Ackerie. Barbarina is now Rainbow Rose, named for Ackerie’s partner Rose, and is berthed in Ackerie’s home city Brisbane. “She is an awesome boat.”


It is clear that although a boat lover, Ackerie’s real enjoyment lies in the creation of boat projects. “I’m not really a pure yachtie, I like to build them, I like to design them, I like to make them happen, and then I like to do the next one,” he said. I love going on boats, but I’m not one of those people that has every weekend out on the boat, get on board Friday come back Monday. I used to do that a long time ago but I don’t do that now.”

With this love of creating boats, is therefore unsurprising that many more yacht projects lie on the horizon. A major step is the imminent launching of a new business, Stefan Boating World, that has been three years in the planning. The 20 million dollar facility, located in Coomera, totals 2 acres. Offering a wide range of boats, all hand selected by Ackerie, the business model is to make yachting more affordable, without compromising on the quality of the product. This would be a challenge for anyone, considering the strength of the Australian dollar and rising production costs, but it’s a challenge Ackerie is keen to take on.

“There’s no question that everything is getting dearer, but I believe that boats don’t have to be as expensive as they are. It’s up to me to see how clever I am [with the business], and if I’m clever I succeed and if I’m not I don’t. I’m under no illusion that what I’m doing with Stefan Boating World is a walk in the park,” he said. “A friend of mine once said ‘there’s a lot of waste in boats’ and I’m trying to avoid the waste. I want to get boats that are clever, from manufacturers who are clever, so I can offer dealers boats that are very, very competitive and range that is comprehensive.”


The focus for Stefan Boating World is selling smaller boats, but there is a superyacht construction side to it as well: Ackerie’s investment into Stefan Boating World included the facility of the beleaguered Warren Yachts [whose most recent launch was Ghost II in 2009]. A 29m superyacht project, begun by Warren Yachts, is now in build there. Ackerie has used his own experience with boats to improve the design. Originally 27.5m, a 6ft swim platform has been added to the design to extend it, and a flybridge incorporated as well. “I like Rainbow Rose very much, but I think the Warren yacht will be less complicated,” said Ackerie. “I just don’t think that superyachts should be so complicated to use. In a house, you turn the switch and you get light. On a boat you’ve got to turn this, and that and it’s complicated. But I guess in a house you have a city that supplies you with things. On a boat you are the city, you are the provider, you are the sewage plant, you are everything. So maybe superyachts have to be complicated.”

This new build is nearly 80 per cent complete and Ackerie is looking forward to the finished result: “It’s a very beautiful boat. When we added the flybridge it doubled the interior, which made it very, very nice.” Once the yacht is finished, how it is received by the market will determine whether activity at the Warren facility continues. “We will wait and see who buys it. If someone buys it, we can’t wait to go again, the shed is magnificent, the factory where we are building it is awesome.”

Read the full interview with Stefan Ackerie in issue 8 of The Superyacht Owner

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