NICV Spotlight: LeAnn Drake
November 24, 2025
At age nine, LeAnn Drake was braiding her own hair. By seventh grade, she was braiding for friends; by ninth, she had clientele. She worked after school and on the weekends, on her front porch in Joliet, at her grandmother’s or at her cousins’ houses. “By the time I got into my adult life,” says Drake, “I was the go-to braider in my community.”
There weren’t braiding-specific licenses in 2009, so Drake attended cosmetology school, first to obtain a license and then to pursue a teaching degree. She continued to hone her braiding knowledge through salon work and trade shows until, in 2016 she opened her own brick and mortar: Luv’le Style Salon. Over the past decade, she hasn’t slowed down. After the salon, she created a haircare line and in 2023 she realized a long-held dream: opening her own braiding school.
Fusion Beauty Academy has been thriving thanks in part to support from Allies for Community Business (A4CB). A4CB’s Northern Illinois Community Ventures loan program offers capital to entrepreneurs like Drake in Joliet, Rockford and South Suburban Cook County to sustain, expand or start their businesses. Nicor Illinois Community Investment (NICI) loans the money to A4CB, which enables this program to exist.
Drake knew Joliet was where she would build her school: “That's where everything started for me,” she says. “Back then, there was no program like this around in the area. I wanted to put my community first.”
The loan through A4CB helped Drake buy equipment and inventory and fund a marketing budget, which she’d never had before: “It’s been an important factor in growing.”
Today, the school has expanded to include cosmetology and barbering and roughly 30 students have graduated with licensure.
“Seeing the students evolve from uncertain learners into competent, licensed professionals is deeply fulfilling,” Drake says. “It reminds me of what I love to do.”
Drake sees her impact on Joliet as one of twofold empowerment: “My advocacy for natural hair and braiding, I feel like it shifts the perceptions in the beauty industry,” she says. “These skills deserve structured and respected training.” And economically, “My program expands the community because it provides business education, a pathway to entrepreneurship.”
Those pathways aren’t just working behind a chair, Drake says, “You can go into sales; you can go into creating a product line; you can work on film and TV.”
Next, Drake hopes to open a second salon to offer a professional home for graduates trying to build a client base before striking out on their own. She also has plans to expand programming at the school, take her product line nationally, and write an e-book. It will be a busy five years. “I don’t feel success yet,” says Drake, “because I’m not finished.”
Photo Caption: Fusion Beauty Academy students look on as Drake lectures and demonstrates technique.