Luda Conti is the part-owner of BellaMi Academie and president and owner of Avanti Day Resort in Manalapan. She came to the United States from Russia when she was 18 years old. As a child, Conti knew she wanted to work in the beauty industry. In Russia, her grandmother often made her own beauty products and taught Conti the importance of beauty and skincare. Following the wishes of her parents, she went to school for computer programming and worked with IBM for a short time. However, she couldn’t deny her strong feelings for the beauty industry, and she followed her dream and opened her first salon in the United States when she was just 20 years old. Conti was ahead of her time, as American salons were not focusing on skincare and spas were not yet very popular. She became the co-owner of a salon in East Brunswick and later founded Avanti.