And the winner is…
$50,000
Dr. Mona Khurana
Dr. Khurana, a board-certified physician, pitched a plan to take Shine MD's physician-led, skin-of-color clinical model beyond its single Vancouver flagship. The idea: systematize the protocols that grew the clinic nearly fivefold in five years, then replicate them as the first network of inclusive medical aesthetics clinics in North America, serving the 85% of the world's population the industry has overlooked.
Learn more: shinemd.com →The Runners-up
Toni DePaola
Toni, a registered nurse and 23-year cosmetologist, pitched a franchise-ready blueprint for the Japanese-inspired head spa. Her 2,000-square-foot flagship is the prototype: a fully documented operating model, AI-supported scalp assessment tools, and nurse-informed protocols that let any team deliver the same restorative experience, ready to be repeated market by market.
Learn more: hollisheadspa.com →
Susan Santsche
Susan, a paramedical esthetician with 44 years in the industry, pitched Expertise Intelligence™: an AI platform that captures a founder's hard-won professional judgment and turns it into Expert Teammates™ that advise staff and clients in real time, even when the expert isn't in the room. Proven inside her own spa, the platform is built to preserve and multiply specialized expertise across beauty and wellness.
Learn more: personalchoicespa.com →
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