Sarasota med-spa hires fractional COO

A med-spa in downtown Sarasota has brought on a fractional COO as it aims to grow in 2025. Marlow Med Aesthetics hired Renee Phinney, who is also vice president of sales for Palm Printing, to fill the C-suite role.

A mutual friend introduced Phinney to Kimberly Marlow, owner of Marlow Med Aesthetics, in 1997.

“We became best friends,” Marlow says, in the decades that followed. “We’ve kind of watched each other grow in our individual careers and in life … We’ve just really supported each other.”

Phinney counts herself among Marlow's growing list of clients.

Marlow has been in the skincare industry for 30 years. She says she started the first day-spa in Sarasota in 1996 on St. Armands Circle, where she was contracted by property owner Lou Mettler, former owner of what is now The Met. After working on multiple day-spas, she got into the med-spa business around 2009 before launching her own four years ago on South Orange Avenue, which now has a staff of six.

“I had no idea it was going to take off the way it has,” Marlow says of her business. Med-spas offer non-surgical medical aesthetic procedures, like laser correction, chemical peels and Botox. “People are looking for a nonsurgical way to really turn back time and not be out of commission.”

While Marlow declines to disclose revenue or the percentage of growth, she says: “We have grown exponentially, and I realized … I can’t manage the growth and still be a provider.”

That's when she knew it was time to add to her leadership team.

As Phinney assumes the role of fractional COO, she says her priority will still be Palm Printing, based in Lakewood Ranch, where she handles sales and is a partner. She has been there for seven years and before that worked as an account executive at Sarasota-based printing company Spotlight Graphics for nearly 30 years.

Her skills from the printing industry will translate well into her part-time work for Marlow Med Aesthetics, according to Phinney.

Photo by Lori Sax

“We both deal with clients, and they have very unique needs,” Phinney says. The job is to “create desired outcomes that work best for the desired results, whether that’s designing an invitation or concierge-ing someone’s skin care for the whole year."

Phinney says her plan is to employ business development and marketing strategies to grow the client base, which Marlow says has grown organically by word of mouth in the last several years.

While many people know about Marlow Med Aesthetics, Marlow says she is tasking Phinney with “making sure that the new people that are moving to Sarasota are aware of us,” including those on Longboat, St. Armands and Lido.

Phinney says she is confident the business is poised for growth based on the foundation its owner has created. Marlow offers the “best of the best” products and has name recognition because of her expertise, according to Phinney.

“It feels like a real opportunity as well as a gift starting a new year with the incredible growth that we are looking forward to,” Phinney says, “and being able to watch each other just soar.”