When Dr. Aivee Teo completed 14 years of medical education—including her dermatology residency—she envisioned a career inside hospital walls, not in luxury clinics or beauty magazines.
“I’m a board-certified dermatologist. Our training is geared to see skin diseases,” she says. “I started working in hospitals—Asian Hospital and Las Piñas Doctors Hospital. In Las Piñas, I even did charity work. I was seeing indigent patients every Saturday.”
She built a solid medical practice. But in 2007, while pregnant with her first child, a conversation with a colleague opened an unexpected door.
“One of my colleagues in Asian Hospital said, ‘I’m opening a small clinic in BGC. Do you want to join me?’” Dr. Aivee recalls. “I said, I’m pregnant now, I’ll be giving birth in Singapore—but maybe when I come back, I can go once or twice a week. If I can just share in the cost of the machines, why not?”
That one conversation changed everything.
What was supposed to be a low-commitment, once-a-week side clinic slowly spiraled into something much bigger. After returning to Manila post-delivery, she found her schedule packed—and her clientele, surprising.
“I started getting celebrities and personalities by referral. People like Gretchen Barretto and Karen Davila came. Friends of friends. I didn’t expect it,” she says. “There were no beds, patients were sharing one bed—and they were happy.”
Even her husband, Dr. Z Teo, who was based in Singapore at the time, was taken aback. “When I flew in, I would wait for her to finish at the clinic. There were long queues, high-end clients, and no place to sit,” he recalls. “She was finishing work at 11 p.m. every night.”
Originally designed as a modest medical extension, the clinic soon became overcrowded. Demand grew so fast that within a year, they were already scouting for new space in Bonifacio Global City (BGC).
“At first I said maybe we can just get half a floor, but my husband told me, ‘Get the whole thing. You’ll have a problem getting space later,’” Aivee says. That new location? A 440-square-meter space—massive by clinic standards at the time.
“It was daunting,” she admits. “No one had a clinic that size. It was unheard of among my peers.”
And yet, it worked. The Aivee Clinic quickly became one of the most recognized skin and aesthetic centers in the country—frequented by celebrities, socialites, and influencers, all without traditional advertising.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” she says. “The clinic filled a need in BGC. I think it was a niche I didn’t even plan to fill—but it was there.”
What started as a part-time setup for a new mom transformed into a full-scale brand, with multiple clinics, loyal clientele, and a reputation for premium aesthetic care grounded in serious medical training.
“I never saw myself as a businesswoman,” Dr. Aivee reflects. “But I knew how to take care of patients—and they kept coming back.”
Her story is a rare case of preparation meeting momentum—proof that sometimes, the next chapter of your career begins with a small yes and a leap of faith.
This story is based on an interview originally conducted for Esquire by Henry Ong. Some quotes in this article may not have been published previously.
