The Heir to Hair: How Laura Charlton Is Shaping the Next Chapter of David’s Salon
From her father’s side to the helm of a 200-branch salon empire, CEO Laura Charlton is building on legacy while steering David’s Salon into the future of beauty.
When Laura Charlton was in her early 20s, and working as a hairdresser in the United Kingdom, she realized she was sick of doing blonde highlights over and over, and applied to work on a cruise ship in Australia instead. But instead of getting her a job, the move got her a phone call from her father, David. “He said, ‘What are you doing?!’” Laura narrates. “I said, ‘I want to do something different.’ So he said, ‘Okay, you come here, and you teach here for six weeks.’ I did. That was in 2007, and I’m still here,” she laughs.
David, Laura’s father, is David Charlton, founder of David’s Salon. “Come here,” meant to his salon, in the Philippines. And “teach here,” meant teach his team of local hairdressers what she had learned working in the U.K.
Life with David
David’s Salon
The Charltons hail from a family of hairdressers in Sunderland, England, and both father and daughter were trained in the art in their home country. In 1978, David came to the Philippines to manage the salon at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Later on, after becoming a partner and then the sole owner, he decided that he wanted the same high-end, quality service to be made affordable and accessible. And so, David’s Salon was born.
Laura was born in the Philippines, but she and her two older sisters, together with their mother, moved back to the U.K. to study, while their father stayed to run the business. Her childhood, though, was peppered with visits to Manila.
“When I was 10, on a visit, everyone started calling me mini David,” Laura shares, explaining, “because out of the three of us siblings, I look the most like him.” Aside from looks, Laura also inherited David’s easygoing, casual personality, and deep, abiding interest in hairdressing. That meant that, through the years, Laura was constantly at her father’s side as he grew his business. At the age of 14, she was accompanying him to Paris, Rome, and Milan, on business trips with suppliers and industry events. “When I was 16,” Laura recalls, “we brought about 15 staff members to the U.K. to study coloring and cutting, and I also joined the classes. I was training with them.” Laura went on to become a hairdresser herself, eventually ending up in the Philippines in 2007, working for the company alongside her father in different departments.
Laura shares that what David’s the salon has done through the years, is stand as a pillar of the local hairdressing industry, its robust state today a testament of the legacy of her father’s salon. “He was one of the first. and with other pillars, many of the ones that are around now came from his salon. With other pillars, he grew the industry and worked to make it more professional and recognized. He made people want to become a hairdresser.” Laura shares that at David’s, they have always championed education—whether it’s training their hairdressers in the best and latest techniques and procedures, or teaching the clients more about their own hair.
Remembering a pioneer
Photographer: Miles Wency
In November of 2024, David and Laura, together with their management team, were on a company trip to Turkey. It was a typical tourist affair. One day, they were sampling Turkish delight and visiting the leather factory. The next day, David, aged 69, suffered a sudden heart attack and passed away. It was a complete shock for Laura, their family, and the entire company. “That wasn’t the deal,” she says, dabbing at her eyes as she recounts what happened that fateful day. “He was supposed to be around until he was at least a hundred and eight. He was supposed to be here for a lot longer.”
Today, Laura has taken over her father’s role as CEO and president. At the end of 2024, she officially moved into his office, which turned out to be an emotional ordeal. “I haven’t touched a lot of his stuff. Mahilig siya sa mga anik-anik,” she says. “I haven’t touched any of it.”
For most Filipinos, there is a David’s Salon branch everywhere you go. “His first branch was in Farmer’s Market in Cubao,” Laura shares. Numerous clients walked through the doors of that first branch, asking David to open other locations—in and out of Metro Manila. He took the suggestions to heart, and began to expand. “You know, Filipinos, no matter what their spending capacity is, everybody wants to be maganda,” Laura explains. “Everybody cares about their appearance. So for David, it was his mission to make that possible.”
That mission has resulted in a staggering 200 branches all over the Philippines. That means that many Filipinos also have their own stories about David’s—both the salon and the person. At David’s wake in Manila, Laura recalls that people were coming up to her and sharing their own stories of her father. “Once before, he came home and told us [siblings] that he did underwater hockey, and we did not believe him! We’d never heard of underwater hockey in the U.K.,” Laura recounts. “But then at my dad’s wake, someone came and told me that the first time he met my dad was when he played underwater hockey with him! It was true after all!”
Looking to the future
Photographer: Miles Wency
But the legacy of David Charlton doesn’t stop at the Philippine hairdressing industry. The heart of it is much closer to Laura, and resembles her own trajectory growing up with her father, and his namesake salon. “His legacy, 100 per cent, is that David’s Salon is a family business,” Laura says. “And when I say family, I don’t mean just our family. We were just two people involved in it. There are 3,000 other people, and some of them are the fourth generation in their families working for David’s. There’s the grandma, the spouse, the child, and even the grandchild, all of them working for David’s.” And that, Laura shares, is the true legacy of David’s.
Since stepping into her father’s shoes, Laura has given much thought to the company that has shaped her life so much. The task of now recalibrating it for the future falls to her. How do you build upon a business that has been around for 36 years? “Ah, you don’t fix the wheel if it’s not broken,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “We have our family, our David’s Salon family with our David’s babies who we have trained from zero all the way up to becoming trainers themselves.” What Laura would like to do is keep up with the salon’s signature—personalized hair education, for stylists and clients alike. She would like their team to stay ahead of the curve—whether it’s precision cutting, color science, or new techniques from Europe and Asia. “I would like to continue keeping up with the trends, making sure that we are the first to come out with new looks, first to launch new colors and techniques. And most importantly, continue educating—our staff, but also our clients.” For Laura, it’s important that Filipinos understand their hair, not just style it.
At the end of the day, what matters most to Laura is family. And this family doesn’t only include those who share her blood, but those who work alongside her, sharing her goals and dreams, and even those who walk through their salon doors. For Laura, what’s important is taking the close-knit community she grew up with, and steering them all, together, into the future.
At David’s, a haircut has never been just a haircut. It was always a lesson, a transformation, a rite of passage—for both stylist and client. That philosophy, Laura says, is what she’s most determined to protect.
Photography: Miles Wency. Art Direction: Lara Castañeda. Makeup and Hair: David’s Salon. Fashion Styling: Andie Dautil of Gee Jocson Studio. Set Designer: Justine Arcega. Account Manager: Daphne Baleros. Production: Esab Raymundo.
