Amanda came to Harpo Hair to lend a hand. She ended up helping shape its future.
There was no grand career plan when Amanda first walked through the doors of Harpo Hair. No carefully mapped-out path into hairdressing, no ambition to manage a salon and certainly no thought that one day she’d become Posey Broomhall’s business partner.
She simply came in to help.
“I honestly just came in to lend a hand,” Amanda laughs. “It wasn’t meant to become anything.”
Amanda and Posey clicked from the beginning, but it wasn’t long before Posey started to see something more.
“I remember sitting down with Amanda and saying, ‘You’re really good in a salon. You’re great with people, you’re great with clients—you should come back to hairdressing.'”
Amanda had actually started an apprenticeship when she was younger, but she hadn’t found the right salon or environment to make her want to continue. Harpo felt different.
With Posey’s encouragement, what had started as simply lending a hand became a second chance at the career Amanda had once walked away from. She returned to her apprenticeship and started again.
Amanda was never shy around the team or the clients—in fact, connecting with people came naturally to her—but confidence in her hairdressing took longer.
Like every apprentice, she had to start at the beginning. There was sweeping, folding towels, cleaning, watching, asking questions and plenty of practising. Slowly, her skills grew and so did her confidence behind the chair.
“They backed me,” Amanda says. “I wasn’t expected to know everything straight away. I was given the opportunity to learn, and that made a huge difference.”
Year after year, Amanda continued to grow—not only as a hairdresser, but as someone the people around her naturally began to rely on. Clients trusted her, apprentices went to her for advice and the team looked to her for support. She became a mentor, then a manager, and quietly became one of the people who helped hold Harpo together.
It was during one of the most difficult periods of Posey’s life that she realised just how important Amanda had become.
When Posey’s mum passed away suddenly, Posey needed to step completely away from the salon. Amanda, who had also experienced her own loss and had taken some time away, returned and simply stepped in.
For an entire week, Amanda ran Harpo without needing anything from Posey. There were no phone calls, no questions and no decisions waiting to be made. She managed the salon, supported the team and kept everything moving while giving Posey the space to be with her family.
“That was a huge moment for me,” says Posey. “I didn’t have to think about Harpo. I knew Amanda had it. But more importantly, I knew she had the team. That’s when I really understood what an incredible support she’d become to everyone.”
The apprentice who once lacked confidence in her own hairdressing had quietly become the person everyone else could depend on.
That leadership was eventually recognised beyond the salon when Amanda was nominated for Salon Manager of the Year at the Australian Hair Industry Awards (AHIA).
“I was so proud of her,” says Posey. “I’d watched her grow as a hairdresser, a mentor and a manager. To see her recognised for something we were lucky enough to see in her every day was really special.”
But there was another, much smaller moment that would eventually change the course of their relationship.
When a team member left Harpo, Posey realised something.
“I was sad to see them go, of course, but I knew Harpo would be okay,” she says. “Then I had this really clear thought: if Amanda left, we wouldn’t be okay.”
It was a simple realisation, but an important one. Amanda wasn’t just an employee anymore. She had become fundamental to the business, the team and what Harpo was becoming.
Eventually, Posey sat down with Amanda again—but this time, the conversation wasn’t about becoming an apprentice.
It was about becoming her business partner.
In many ways, it was the natural next step in a partnership that had already been forming for years.
“We complement each other,” says Posey. “Amanda is fabulous on the floor and incredible with the team. She brings fresh eyes and a different perspective, and we balance each other out.”
For Posey, the partnership has also created the space to continue growing Harpo while remaining behind the chair doing the other thing she loves—hair.
“I love doing hair, but I also genuinely love the business side of Harpo. Having Amanda beside me gives me the time and space to do both. I can keep creating and growing the business because I know she’s there supporting the salon and our team.”
Today, Amanda continues to grow every year—not only as a hairdresser, but as a mentor, manager and businesswoman. And as Harpo enters its biggest chapter yet, Posey says having Amanda beside her makes what comes next possible.
“Amanda keeps growing, and she supports me so I can keep growing Harpo. That’s what makes us such a great team.”
The funny thing is, none of it was planned.
Amanda came to Harpo Hair simply to lend a hand.
She ended up becoming one of the reasons Harpo could keep growing.
