During the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting this past month, Jane Wurwand, founder of Dermalogica, announced the Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship (FITE) Entrepreneur Accelerator Program. This is an entrepreneurship education initiative for the spa and salon industry that is set to impact more than 100,000 women and girls in the U.S. during the next three years. It will focus on filling the business skills gap that currently exists in the spa and salon industry by creating entrepreneurship education to supplement the existing vocational training education. This commitment will span several phases, including the creation and launch of an online resource platform; the offering of scholarships to a select group of women in the industry for community college online education classes; and the program will host a weekend-long boot camp at a partnered college or university for entrepreneurs to take business, financial literacy, and management workshops. In the fourth phase, Dermalogica will launch a new education platform with salon specific courses such as how to retail, balance your books, market services, manage a small business, employee skills, and how to increase your service revenue and take home pay. The platform will be developed in partnership with global financial empowerment non-profit partner Operation Hope who is digitizing the program’s financial education and entrepreneurship curriculum. “Expertise in education and skillset training have been the cornerstones of Dermalogica’s success for more than 30 years,” says Wurwand. “We are now looking to jumpstart entrepreneurship education with women in the salon industry, accelerating the potential of more than 100,000 women and girls in the U.S.”