Happy place
When Melanie Gleeson opened her first Endota Spa in rural Victoria 16 years ago, she had no idea it would be the wellness escape everyone was looking for.
There are a handful of people who had their finger on the wellness pulse long before cold-pressed juices became as much a fashion accessory as the Chloé Faye bag. Endota Spa’s co-founder Melanie Gleeson was one of the few. Since starting her business as a bright-eyed, and admittedly naïve, 26-year-old, her tally of franchised spas Australia-wide now totals 94. “I do think, even more so now than when we started, getting that care is what’s important to people. Everything’s on automatic,” says Gleeson, now 41, of the need for people to switch-off from their autopilot lives.
Entering an Endota spa you’re immediately ushered into a Zen-like state: voices are hushed, aromas are soothing, visuals are comforting – people are happier here. “We’ve got people who say: ‘I just want to sit in your waiting area. I don’t even need a treatment,’” jokes Gleeson, perched in the room where customers come to unwind (read: unravel) at Endota Spa in Sydney’s Paddington.
After today’s interview, Gleeson will fly back to Victoria to speak alongside other successful women at a networking and educational seminar. So what can we learn from one of Australia’s most successful, though little-known, beauty entrepreneurs? Her manner is excitable and energetic (we’re reminded once during the interview to assert our “spa” voices) though careful and direct; she has a strong spirituality – which is reflected throughout all of her spas; she describes her management style as “a little bit crazy … it’s all women, we just talk and it’s really inclusive”; and despite her flourishing business she’s fiercely passionate about work-life balance. Which is all the more reason to be in the spa business.
“If you don’t get that moment to yourself, your mind is just busy and full and you’re not thinking, you’re just running through your day, through the motions, and there’s just no thought in what you’re doing,” Gleeson explains, citing traditional “feminine values” – nurturing and caring – as integral to modern wellbeing.
Gleeson, who admits a portion of the company’s success can be attributed to the wellness boom – after all, it’s cool to be healthy now, explains our approach to health must be holistic. “I feel that as a society we’ve got our values mixed up, and rather than really understanding that time, and silence and care, are so important, it’s like we’ve flipped it,” she explains.
It’s also why if you set foot inside Endota’s Mornington Peninsula headquarters on a weekday at 3pm you might be met with an office full of empty desks: after-school pick-up takes priority (Gleeson herself is mother of two young children) before staff jump back on email in the afternoon. “When people ask: ‘How do you deal with gender equality? How do you work with flexibility?’ – it’s inherent to us, we’ve been led by women since the beginning,” says Gleeson, who built the company with a longtime friend following a conversation at a backyard barbecue. “We do it because we want great women at our workplace.”
As the most successful day spa network in Australia and with plans to go global “when the time is right”, Gleeson is not only heralding the shift towards more me-time, she’s leading by example. “I think the way women lead is different, and I think it comes from a deeper place, and it’s more nurturing, it’s more collaborative, and these are the values that we need to see coming out. I don’t think women should shy away from that.”