Opportunity came knocking

This month, in the Gazette's series on the people behind our small businesses, we meet Muoi Vo, who owns Infinity Beauty & Foot Spa (‘Infinity Beauty’) in Brantome Street, Gisborne

Muoi, known as ‘mum’ to her employees, bought her business, Infinity Beauty, in November 2019, fulfilling a life-long dream to own her own beauty salon.

Muoi was born in Ca Mau, a small town in the south of Vietnam. In 1989 an opportunity to migrate to Australia came to her town. Muoi’s brother convinced her to take this opportunity to move to Australia with him for a chance at a better life than a small village could offer them.

So, they joined a large group of the town’s people and as a community boarded a boat to Australia.

In Australia, Muoi lived in the west of Melbourne and, given her limited English language skills, mainly worked as a seamstress in a factory and then as a nail technician.

She later faced some hardship when she became a single parent of two and found herself taking refuge at a women’s shelter, but it was not long before Muoi got back on her feet.

With help from the community and friends, Muoi continued to work hard, saved her money and bought a house in Kings Park where she raised her two children. All the while she dreamed that one day she would own her own beauty salon.

In 2019, opportunity came knocking. A friend of Muoi’s owned several beauty salons which were getting too much for her to maintain and run herself, so she offered Muoi the opportunity to buy one of the stores.

Muoi always loved rural areas and wanted to work outside of the city in a beautiful community so she chose to buy her friend’s Gisborne store. She knew that all she would need to get the business running smoothly was some hard work and good customer service.

In Muoi’s opinion, Gisborne has a caring and friendly community and she says it means much to her to have