Mi-Ki Choong, Chairman, Group Strategist
The Healthcare Insights had the opportunity to interview the management team at BENPHYSIO, our Healthcare Company of the Year – 2026 under the Physiotherapy Services segment. Through the conversation, we gained valuable insights into the company’s journey, its commitment to delivering quality hands-on physiotherapy, and the leadership principles that have shaped its growth. This feature takes a closer look at BENPHYSIO’s approach to patient care, its evolution as a growing healthcare organization, and its vision for making a lasting difference in people’s lives.
1. Could you share with us the story behind the inception of BENPHYSIO? What inspired you to establish a company focused on physiotherapy?
BENPHYSIO was founded by Ben Loo in 2013. For nearly a decade he grew it carefully, reaching two outlets by 2021, and even opening a third proved difficult. A highly reputable physiotherapist, he recognised that clinical excellence alone does not guarantee business success. To take BENPHYSIO further, he needed the right person to lead it.
His hands-on treatment had drawn a remarkable clientele: celebrities, royalty, politicians, corporate leaders and national athletes, some flying in from overseas. Among them was entrepreneur Mi-Ki Choong, who had built and run her own businesses as well as running her family businesses. Recognising her strength as an award-winning entrepreneur and public figure/celebrity, Ben Loo invited her to come on board as Chairwoman.
Mi-Ki Choong will not take on a role until she is confident she can make a real impact, so before accepting she studied the business and industry as thoroughly as she could. Her belief in it was personal: she had first come to BENPHYSIO as a patient with a sports injury, and what won her over was not only her own recovery but seeing every patient around her improve.
Here was a chance to help the community, use her entrepreneurial skills, influence, and network to lift the brand’s visibility, and show people that their pain can truly be healed. That people should not have to live in pain became the foundation of BENPHYSIO’s vision and mission.
Once on board, Mi-Ki Choong delivered the transformation: from 2023 to 2026 she launched 10 new outlets in three years and established the SOPs, corporate culture and direction the company had lacked. BENPHYSIO is now part of the Centurise Group, where she serves as Founder and Group Strategist.
2. How do BENPHYSIO’s services improve patients’ mobility, manage pain, and support recovery?
Our services work because they follow a consistent clinical sequence rather than a fixed formula. Every patient’s journey begins with assessment, understanding their symptoms, movement patterns and the underlying factors behind their discomfort, before any treatment decision is made.
From there, hands-on manual techniques unique to BENPHYSIO address the specific areas of stiffness, tightness and restricted movement, complemented where appropriate by rehabilitation, stretching, strengthening and movement retraining. The manual work relieves the immediate restriction, while the exercise and rehabilitation components rebuild capacity so the improvement holds.
What allows this to benefit patients across all our outlets, not just those who happen to see a senior clinician, is how deliberately it’s taught. Every BENPHYSIO physiotherapist is trained and mentored to the same assessment and hands-on standards, so the depth of care doesn’t depend on which therapist or location a patient walks into. That consistency is what turns a strong individual technique into a dependable service.
3. What were some of the most challenging phases during BENPHYSIO’s journey, and how did the company navigate them?
BENPHYSIO’s greatest challenge was the inability to scale without the right leadership. Ben Loo is an exceptional clinician, but growing from a small practice into a multi-outlet organisation demanded an entirely different set of skills.
For nearly a decade the business held at two outlets, and even opening a third proved difficult, not for lack of clinical strength, but because scale requires systems, structure and strategy that clinical talent alone cannot provide.
The turning point was bringing in the right person to lead. When Mi-Ki Choong stepped in, she implemented exactly what the business had been missing: clear SOPs, an organisational structure and a defined strategy for growth.
4. What does the BENPHYSIO philosophy of “hands-on” physiotherapy mean in practical terms, and why has it remained central to your identity?
Hands-on physiotherapy is more than our treatment method. It reflects a core belief that physiotherapy should do more than provide temporary, symptomatic relief.
Using clinical knowledge, assessment skills and precise manual technique, our physiotherapists identify and address the physical restrictions behind a patient’s pain, treating the cause rather than masking the symptoms.
It has remained central because it is genuinely differentiated. Much of what patients experience elsewhere leans on equipment or standardised programmes, whereas hands-on physiotherapy is skill-intensive and personal.
5. What distinguishes a truly effective physiotherapy experience from one that simply provides short-term relief?
The difference between effective physiotherapy and temporary relief is what remains once the pain is gone. Masking symptoms is easy; genuine treatment changes a patient’s function and their understanding of their own body.
So we judge success by what happens after discharge, not during the session. Can the patient move better than before? Can they return to work, sport or daily life? Do they understand their condition well enough to manage it and avoid recurrence?
Relief that doesn’t survive contact with real life isn’t success to us. This is why our treatment pairs hands-on work with rehabilitation and strengthening. The manual techniques resolve the immediate problem, while the active components build the resilience that keeps the patient from cycling back through the same injury.
Long-term independence, not repeat visits, is the outcome we design for.
6. What leadership principles or values have been most important in building BENPHYSIO’s culture and reputation?
Mi-Ki Choong leads by example. Her leadership is grounded in empathy and a genuine care for patients, and she sets the tone for the culture across the whole organisation.
She believes leaders build leaders, and has been open in sharing her knowledge and experience so that others can grow. This is clearest in how she has mentored Ben Loo, coaching him in his development as a leader so the company can continue what it set out to do and expand on the right foundations.
That same principle now runs through BENPHYSIO: we want to develop our people, so the business grows through many capable leaders rather than any single individual.
Our aim is to keep growing while maintaining the quality of service that built our reputation.
7. Key priorities for the next three to five years
Our goal for the next three to five years is to help more people without compromising what made us trusted in the first place.
• Responsible expansion. We’ll bring hands-on physiotherapy to more communities across Malaysia, but every new centre must clear the same bar for clinical care, therapist competency and patient experience. Growth is gated by our ability to train people to standard, never the other way around.
• Deeper patient outcomes. We’ll strengthen patient education and rehabilitation so more people move from pain relief to lasting confidence, mobility and quality of life.
• Technology. We’ll adopt technology thoughtfully as the landscape evolves, strengthening operational efficiency while always keeping patient care and outcomes at the centre.
The through-line is simple: reach more people, and deliver better lives through quality hands-on physiotherapy which BENPHYSIO is truly number one for.