Entrepreneur and Doctor of the Year awards leave me speechless…almost!

As much as I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved at Vie Aesthetics, it’s not often I sing our praises out loud. I prefer to let our work do the talking – and then hopefully, our clients will do the same. However, I can honestly say that events of the last week have left me wanting to shout with joy. So excuse me if the following sounds a little out of character…

Last week, I was humbled to be nominated for “Entrepreneur of the Year” at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Just a few days earlier, our Medical Director Dr Ioannis Liakas was the runner-up “Aesthetics Medical Practitioner of the Year” at the Safety in Beauty Diamond Awards, at a glitzy affair in London’s Hilton. Previously, we had been nominated for “Aesthetics Medical Clinic of the Year” in 2017 and 2018, too.

To receive these recognitions are, from a personal perspective, heartening and exciting. But from a wider perspective, I think the reward runs deeper. I see it as some kind of justification for the vision that we set ourselves – that is to provide the highest quality service with a focus on ethics, safety and excellent customer care.

When Dr Liakas (pictured) and I launched Vie Aesthetics in 2013, the UK beauty and aesthetics industry was alarmingly unregulated. That meant procedures can be performed by largely untrained staff, with an insufficient level of expertise. This is a world too in which customers could find themselves flooded with misrepresentation, ageism, and unrealistic images and messages, leading to heightened insecurities, unfair expectations and potentially ill-advised choices.

Our goal was to not only create a financially sufficient business, and introduce innovative treatments, but to also challenge those industry flaws.

From the beginning, I introduced a strict code of practice. All our aesthetic procedures are only performed by highly qualified doctors. All our treatments include comprehensive consultations, preparation and thorough aftercare. We use only top-of-the-range products, while providing them at reasonable prices. Finally, we created a new concept of space and multisensory experience for our clients.

These are values we’ve never swayed from. We also take social responsibility and sustainability seriously (we have gone paperless, for example), and we sponsor and promote charities that raise awareness on autism, bullying, diversity and cancer research.

Over the last six-plus years we are delighted to have seen our profile rise and our clientele grow, resulting in steady expansion. In November 2018, we opened our three-storey flagship clinic in Rayleigh, Essex, and now have three clinics in the UK, including one in London’s Harley Street, and two affiliated clinics in Europe.

I am very proud with what we have accomplished on our journey so far, and that we’ve been able to deliver on our promises and vision. Of course, the awards and nominations are lovely and hugely satisfying, and it remains to be seen what happens with my Entrepreneur of the Year nomination, but I guess they still can’t account for what truly matters – total client satisfaction.

Here’s to many more successful years of safe, ethical and innovative practice at Vie Aesthetics (and maybe a few more award nominations, too…ahem).

Vicky Grammatikopoulou
CEO, Vie Aesthetics