Empowering people to look and feel good
Dec. 17, 2020 was a day that Marria Pooya will never forget.
A car driven by Devon Dalio ”“ son of billionaire hedge funder Ray Dalio ”“ crashed into a Verizon store in Greenwich”™s Riverside Commons shopping center, setting it ablaze and killing him. While there were no other fatalities or injuries, the Verizon store was destroyed as was the adjacent location of Pooya”™s Greenwich Medical Spa.
“Right on the heels of Covid, I was kicked in the knees,” she said. “It was the day my life changed.”
Smoke and water damage meant that the place had to be gutted and the server with all the patient appointments and files was temporarily knocked offline. Two years later, she”™s still not back in that location, which is being renovated and slated to reopen in March. Subsequently, Connecticut”™s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Dalio”™s death resulted from burns and smoke inhalation sustained in an accident. Meanwhile, Pooya is suing his estate, noting, “we lost 40% of our market share over something we didn”™t cause. We had a six-month wait list. Some patients went elsewhere.
“If Greenwich were my only location,” she added, “I”™d have been out of business.”
But it”™s not for nothing that Pooya”™s titles are visionary and founder of Greenwich Medical Spa.
“We had a vision and that was to take the business to New York, Connecticut and New Jersey,” she said.
With branches in Westport, Scarsdale and Ridgefield, Pooya was able to relocate staff and many patients, setting up a temporary Greenwich location in Cos Cob. (Recently, Greenwich Medical Spa added locations in West Hartford and Glastonbury.)
For Pooya, it has been a case of life lessons learned, not the least of which was make sure you have enough insurance to cover the unthinkable. The other was a variation on the theme of build back better. When patients return to the former Greenwich location next year, they”™ll be in a 6,000-square-foot, two-story space that is more than double the size of the old one, with a body center on the lower level and an “open flow area” for treatment demonstrations and for patients to work or relax.
With an increase in the number of locations over the years has come an increase in staff ”“ from five to more than 60 employees ”“ and the number of patients served, from 100 to more than 10,000. But Pooya”™s goals don”™t merely lie in the business arena. While she wants all of the medical spa”™s patients to look and feel good, she particularly wants to empower women, who make up more than 90% of the clientele. And that”™s in part because she had to empower herself.
Pooya comes from a place where no one empowers women, where, she said, “a 9-year-old schoolboy has more sway than a mature woman” ”“ Kabul, Afghanistan. The oldest of four ”“ three girls and a boy ”“ she was always interested in her father”™s electronics import business. He in turn lamented that she had not been born male. Her future was to be someone”™s wife and somebody else”™s mother. But all that was about to change.
A 9-year-old Pooya arrived in the United States in 1981 with her family for an uncle”™s wedding. While here, her grandfather died of a heart attack. With the Soviets having invaded Afghanistan two years earlier ”“ the war would last 10 years ”“ Pooya”™s father decided it would be better for the family to remain here while he traveled back and forth for its business. Pooya grew up in Flushing, Queens and then on Long Island. Still, her mother wanted her to marry and have children after high school. But Pooya would go on to New York University in Manhattan, where she earned a dual Bachelor of Science degree in finance and international business from the Stern School of Business. It was a move that would take her to Wall Street (Alex. Brown, a division of Raymond James, Lehman Brothers) and to help the family business introduce Revlon products to Uzbekistan. Always interested in fashion and beauty, Pooya also created two color cosmetics lines for the family business, learning everything from production to shipping.
Eventually, Pooya married a man whom she described as “my cheerleader” ”“ Babak Pooya, general counsel of BTG Pactual, a Brazilian-based investment bank. (The couple live in Westport with their son and daughter.) “But I needed more,” she said of her entrepreneurial spirit.
She explored opening a candy store, then looked at the hot trend of medical spas. In 2004, Pooya paid $80,000 for a Radiance Medical Spa franchise located over a Boston Market in Old Greenwich. However, she says, “the franchisor had a vision but didn”™t have the experience to carry out the vision.” In 2006, she sued, got her money back and rebranded the place as Greenwich Medical Spa.
As the name implies, it”™s about more than facials, though the spa does those as well as fillers; chemical peels; Botox; ultherapy, or ultrasound therapy to lift the face and neck; coolsculpting to remove fat cells from the body; and EMSculpt to build muscle and remove fat. Thus the medical spa combines the sleek elegance of a traditional spa with the businesslike attitude of a doctor”™s office in which procedures are overseen by physician assistants, also called physician associates, and nurse practitioners. (The executive team includes medical director Michael Janiszewski, M.D., and board-certified dermatologist Mitchell J. Ross, M.D.)
At the Scarsdale location in the Golden Horseshoe shopping center, we sampled EMSculpt Neo, which physician associate Stephanie Oertel, a Norwalk resident, said uses radio frequency as well as electromagnetic waves to increase muscle fibers and decrease fat. It”™s the same technology as in Tesla cars and, because of the electromagnetism, it is not for those with electrical and metal implants. Patients come in for six 30-minute sessions every other week to tone calves, thighs, buttocks, the abdomen, biceps and/or triceps. One ab session is equal to 20,000 crunches. After six sessions, Oertel said, you can expect a 30% percent reduction in fat and a 20% increase in muscle, though you”™ll need follow-ups to maintain the more sculpted look.
After filling out a medical survey and signing the consent form, we got on a scale that measured not only our weight and BMI (Body Mass Index) but our hydration level. (Women”™s hydration needs to be over 40%, she said, and men”™s over 50%.) Then wearing a towel wrap, we hopped onto a bed with a coverlet as Oertel strapped a device to our stomach that she monitored periodically along with medical assistant Jayde Creamer, a Yonkers resident. For the next half-hour, we felt a tapping and a pulling, as if we were being lifted up by our core. There was also an undulating sensation, like going over a speed bump.
Afterward we noticed a red disclike spot where the device had been that went away almost immediately. What didn”™t go away, even after just one session, was the sense of being a bit more toned in the abs. We felt it the next morning ”“ the sensation of tautness, of having had a good workout ”“ as we went back to our crunches.
“Everyone wants to feel good,” Pooya said. “It”™s such a great service to make people feel and look good. It creates more confidence. If I can do that, then I”™ll have done my job.”
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