“I’m quite a control freak actually, I like being in charge of things, I’m an organiser,” said Linda Stewart, co-founder of Rainbow Room ­International – Scotland’s largest hairdressing group.

Rainbow Room International opened their first salon on Buchanan Street in 1979, now celebrating 40 years in the business, the husband and wife duo, Linda and Alan Stewart, own 11 luxury salons across Glasgow, Ayr and Stirling.

Speaking to the Evening Times, Linda said: “I think you’re always trying to be the best, it’s the ­competitive edge, you’re constantly trying to be different, push boundaries.

“I think all the salons we’ve done, we’ve never sort of stuck to a corporate look.”

Linda joined forces with Alan in 1984 when they opened the second Rainbow Room on Royal Exchange Square.

She was just 23-years-old and managed the salon so successively, a third was opened on George Square not long after.

“So we became business partners then, this was before we were ­actually together,” Linda said.

The pair then owned three successful salons within 100 yards from one another.

When asked how she found the experience, considering her young age, she said: “I suppose you don’t really know much different then.

“It’s one of these things people always say, would you change anything, or if you knew what you knew now, would you have done it differently? “It’s very difficult to say because you’re just on a journey and learning these things.”

Linda and Alan began their business focusing on the artistic side, often travelling overseas to shows and experimenting with innovative hairstyles.

“The both of us were constantly on a mission,” she said. “I think first of all it was the real artistic side of it and then eventually we started to really seriously learn about business.”

“We nearly went bankrupt at one point,” Linda laughed. “Well not really, but we didn’t realise that we were overspending. We learned big time.”

From then on Linda and Alan became “business junkies”.

“We went to every seminar we could, we read every business book there was, we watched videos,” Linda said. “In the car we used to have tapes on, which is like TedTalks now.”

Rainbow Room flourished, into 11 award-winning salons and a training academy, teaching more than 100 students every year.

Linda said: “We must have trained thousands of students.

“We grow people I think. We’ve taught these people and grown them into the business people they’ve become.

“We’ve got an art team and a teaching team, we want to get that message out there that no matter what you want to do in hairdressing, we would be the people to give you that opportunity.”

Being a successful female entrepreneur Linda said she hopes she can be seen as role model to other women looking to get into the industry.

Linda said: “At the top of hairdressing it’s still quite male dominated, they seem to be the people that do really well, a big percent are males.

“But again there are a lot of females that are role models to follow onto, and I think yeah I can see myself being this business woman to look up to.”

Though, she added: “The male dominance, it’s not so much in Scotland believe it or not, there are a lot of well known, very successful women hairdressers in Scotland.

“Scottish women are strong and determined I think.”