The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry

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Welcome to The Group Dentistry Now Show: The Voice of the DSO Industry!

Women in DSO Empower & Grow Event & 2026 Updates

Dr. Aman Kaur, Founder & President of Women in DSO & Dr. Greg White, CEO of Pepperpointe Partnerships discuss:

Empower & Grow – March 5-7
Rise & Lead Program
Upcoming Global Summits
Much More

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To learn more about Women in DSO visit – https://womenindso.org/

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DSO Podcast Transcript – Women in DSO Empower & Grow Event & 2026 Updates

Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now Show, the voice of the DSO industry. Join us as we talk with industry leaders about their challenges, successes, and the future of group dentistry. With over 200 episodes and listeners in over 100 countries, we’re proud to be ranked the number one DSO podcast. For the latest DSO news, analysis and events, and to subscribe to our DSO Weekly e-newsletter, visit GroupDentistryNow.com. We hope you enjoyed today’s show.

Bill Neumann: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Group Dentistry Now show. I’m Bill Neumann. And as always, we appreciate you tuning in. Always have great guests on the show. And we have one returning guest and one new guest to our podcast. may have seen him around. And it’s, it’s gonna be a great conversation. We’re going to focus on women in DSO, the organization, the, the big event that they have in Las Vegas coming up called Empower and Grow. They’ve got a lot of things that, that they’re, that that they’re into right now. And I think a lot of people may know women in DSO from the Las Vegas event, but there’s so much more than that. So welcome back, Dr. Aman Kaur to the Group Dentistry Now show. It’s great to have you back on.

Dr. Aman Kaur: Thank you so much, Bill, for having us. And I’m so excited to be here with Dr. White today.

Bill Neumann: Yeah. And so we have with us Dr. Greg White, and he is the CEO of Pepperpoint Partnerships. Now, Dr. White is not shy. And I remember Dr. White, I don’t know if you recall this, but Pepper Point Partnerships won the Emerging Groups to Watch Award in 2022. And we gave the awards out in Nashville at the Music Hall of Fame there. And it was a very interesting acceptance speech. It was a literal mic drop. I caught it, though it didn’t hit the floor, but he definitely ruffled some feathers in a good way. But it’s great to have you on.

Dr. Greg White: Well, thanks, Bill. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, Iman. It’s always a pleasure to be able to share time with you, especially with all the work that you’ve done and how you have promoted ministry through women over the last few years. And Bill, that moment that you bring up, I recall it very well. And you’re right, I’m not too shy. Sometimes I say too much, but anyway, it’s always from the heart.

Bill Neumann: Absolutely. It was a lot of fun. Dr. Kaur, would you mind, just for maybe some people in the audience who may not know you, a little bit about your background and a little bit about women in DSO?

Dr. Aman Kaur: Yeah, happy to share. And so, Bill, I’ve been in the, I’m Dentist by Trade. I’ve been in DSO space for over 18 years. So it kind of gives my age away. But, and we found Women in DSO in 2021. It was official launch, and 2022 was our first annual summer. So we are approaching 5 years with Women in DSO this year. And Women in DSL is an organization we started to highlight women’s work as they are doing the lion’s share of work in a lot of organizations. And it’s an industry, women-dominated, and we just want to get more women representing their work and get them in leadership positions. So that’s Women in DSL. And this is our fifth year, so we are excited to be celebrating at our annual summit, Empower and Grow.

Bill Neumann: I can’t believe it’s already five years. It’s, that’s… Yeah, time flies. Now, Dr. White, like I said, I mentioned, CEO and President of Pepperpoint Partnerships. Your, your group is pretty different than I think a lot of what people would traditionally think of as DSO. So a little bit about your background and then what makes Pepperpoint so different.

Dr. Greg White: Yeah, sure, Bill. You know, I think one of the big reasons that we’re different is because of my personal background. You know, I grew up in the ranks as a dentist as an orthodontist for 25 years and started taking a look at many of the changes that were occurring. And we kind of had a road map to where that was going because we could see what had happened in medicine and in pharmacy. And I just felt like there was an opportunity for dentistry to do things a little bit differently. So we took a different road in that we have done a lot of group consolidations without bringing any private equity money into it. It’s all been self-funded, and the doctors own 100% of all the practices, including the non-clinical assets. So the belief behind this model is that If the doctor’s reputation is on the lawn every single day that they go in, that at the end of the day, they’re going to hold themselves more accountable. They’re going to stay in it longer. They’re going to have more rewards from it, both in how they are practicing dentistry and what they receive from it. So our entire model is based on protecting patients. And we protect patients through the consolidation of dentists into group practices so that they don’t see each other as competition, but rather as partners. And the ultimate goal is always to elevate care for the patient. So that’s put us in a very good position, especially in this day and age when so many of the DSOs are are looking for that seat to sit in as the music stops, looking for that equity event. And that doesn’t put us in that position. We’re not looking at three to five years. We’re building something for three to five generations.

Bill Neumann: Great. Thank you both. Let’s get into it with some of the Q&A. And I think we do start off with this fifth anniversary for Empower and Grow. It’s held in Las Vegas every year. This year is no different. It’s March 5th through the 7th at Caesars Palace. But even though it’s the same place, the event has really started to evolve. So maybe talk a little bit about what to expect at Empower and Grow, and maybe for the people in the audience that haven’t attended, what’s it all about?

Dr. Aman Kaur: Yeah, no, happy to share. And, you know, my favorite thing is, Bill, I want to highlight that Women in DSO is not just about an event. So I just want to get that out of the way. We are an association where we actually really take pride in a lot of our programs and our member organizations like Pepperpoint. Dr. White’s organization has been one of our founding members. So what this annual summit is, it’s a celebration of all those founding members and women in the industry. And we are known for our content. And this year is going to be no different. But we are changing it up a bit this year, because with so many conferences and panel after panel, And same people kind of talking. So what you will see different here is every year we try to bring different speakers. So again, we are planning to have around 50 women speakers that will be there and they are doing great work in great positions, but somehow they are not as well known. So that’s a big differentiator. We will be conducting a live survey during our event to get some benchmarks around our industry. In addition to that, this year we are going to have live debates. I got that idea actually from Dr. White. So we are excited about that. And because there are some topics where we don’t agree, and there’s different perspectives and how people are doing things differently, and they’re passionate about those differences. So that’s going to be a different thing in the agenda. And One of the highlights of this event is going to be is our Rise and Lead program. With this being our fifth year, so our goal is to have 50 dentists get offers on site. So we are bringing around 200 recent graduate dentists And finally, dental students who are looking for opportunities. And we are working with our member DSOs to be on site. And this is not a job fair. It’s going to be these dentists are ready and expecting job offers. So it’s a different kind of mindset. So that’s going to be a big highlight for us. And in addition to our regular agenda, everyone loves our President’s Invitational and Bash. I was actually hearing from a bunch of people that they are already identified their outfits and who they are going to meet, what they’re going to do. So I’ve heard a lot of excitement around that.

Bill Neumann: So you’ve got a lot going on. Let me see if I can touch on a couple of these things you’re going to have. And you’re right. You talked about a lot of events. And I think there was this pent up demand during Covid, right? Everybody was locked up and they just wanted to get out and they went to every single event. But you do see a theme where it’s a lot of the same speakers, a lot of the same topics. And I think in 2025, we saw some events maybe that had been well attended, maybe not so well attended. You saw the ADA pretty much change their focus on their annual meeting and And that’s, so SmileCon is not around anymore. They’ve kind of focused more clinically and doing smaller events. So I think it’s really important to evolve, right, and I think to have different speakers, which I think is what makes, one of the things that makes women in DSO so different is a lot of the attendees are people that don’t necessarily go to other meetings. So you’ve got, you know, exposure to decision makers that you may not see at other events. So if you’re a vendor, I think that’s important, or even from a networking perspective. And then you mentioned, you know, doing the live survey, which is great, and go figure that Dr. White would have given you the idea to debate. And I just, it’s shocking, he would have been the one to give you that idea. But The debate format’s great. Instead of doing presentations or the same kind of panel discussions, I think the debate is great. I’ve seen a couple of those done very well. And you kind of get the audience engaged. What side are you on? Whose side do you fall on in that debate? Which is a lot of fun. Talk about how you mentioned Rise and Leads, which is really interesting. And that’s new, right? This year coming up, this is something you haven’t done before. Is that going to happen on the floor, show floor? And are these preset meetings? Like, what does this look like for these young clinicians that are looking for career opportunities?

Dr. Aman Kaur: So it’s going to be happening on March 4th. It’s before our opening reception. And what we have done is we have partnered with a few residency programs and dental schools, and we have already received that interest forms from those dentists and the DSOs that are coming there to meet with this group. We have received their job recs, and these are pre-scheduled meetings. So this is one of the things because, you know, we want to see impact. And these are the mission-aligned DSOs. And we want to get, as more women dentists are graduating, we want to put them in driver’s seat. It’s a little bit turning the tables around. There will be all these dentists who are looking for opportunities, they will be interviewing these different DSOs, but they kind of like two to three DSOs for certain positions. And whoever gives them a fair job offer is what they will be expecting and accepting it on site.

Bill Neumann: That’s really exciting. OK, so that’s that’s pretty much like the day before the main event kicks off. So that would be on March the 4th. And then things kick off on March. They go they run from the 5th to the 7th. Right. The main event.

Dr. Aman Kaur: Yes. You know what? I actually can. No, I misspoke. I apologize. It’s March 5th in the afternoon before the reception starts.

Bill Neumann: Okay. So yeah. And I see, I see on the schedule that it looks like things kind of start around. There’s some breakout sessions at one o’clock, right? So it starts, the main event starts in the afternoon. And so then a rise in lead is in earlier in the day on the 5th.

Dr. Aman Kaur: So yeah, we are picking off the event with the rise in lead and then it goes into opening reception and full days on March 6th.

Bill Neumann: This is a great point to mention if you haven’t registered already, you do so now, and we’ve got a code. Thank you for the code. It’s GDN, like Group Dentistry Now, GDN 26, and you save 20%. We’ll put that in the show notes, but I wanted to mention that because there is a lot going on at this event, and you really have been able to kind of jam quite a bit into a short amount of time, and I’m sure there’s time for fun as well, not just the education side of it. You also have LEAD, right, the LEAD, which is a publication and you’ve got an anniversary coming up with that. So not only do you have your organization and you have your event, actually events, we’ll talk about some of those later beyond this one, but you have a publication. How’s that going and tell us about this anniversary.

Dr. Aman Kaur: So the LEAD is, it’s our second year with the LEAD, second anniversary with the LEAD. And it’s been one of the premium publications that was the dream when we started. We said it’s, it needs to be something that Harvard Business Review meets Vogue. That’s what it should look like. And I’m really excited to share that. I see it on a lot of CEOs’ desks. Dr. White, I’m assuming this is a copy for you, one around here. And this year, we are launching it as a platform, taking it to the next phase where this will be a hub for all the dental information and data and what’s next, what organizations are doing. So we are kind of going into this 2.0 with the lead this coming year. And this is going to be a celebration of all the leaders and organizations we have been able to feature in the past six editions.

Bill Neumann: So you might wonder why we have Dr. White on, and it’s really to kind of get his perspective. You’re Pepperpoint’s founding member of Women in DSO, or founding organization. You’ve been involved there. You’ve spoken before at various events or… past years, and you’re going to speak this year as well. Talk a little bit about the event from your perspective as a CEO. And then I’m curious, you know, what the impact on you and your team has been?

Dr. Greg White: Yeah, no, it’s, first of all, I’m on Her team has done an amazing job. What they’ve done in the course of the last five years to grow this out of the ground has been amazing. Last year’s event was incredible, the energy that was there. So it’s an incredible event. And I want to speak more broadly just a little bit to just the benefits, the value of showing up. You know, we live in an era where almost everything can be done virtually. And when people make a decision to physically be present, that’s become the differentiator now. It used to be a default, but now it is the differentiator. And showing up creates an opportunity for people to be able to take part in real time with real people and build the relationships that matter most. If I look back on my career, almost every significant thing that I’ve ever accomplished has, has its seminal moment from showing up at something at an event, or a meeting that I tried to talk myself out of. And I I know that whenever you say yes to one thing, you’re having to say no to something else, but we spend so much time working on our business or in our business. It’s been so little time working on the business. And, uh, I hear people talk all the time about, uh, what, um, their priorities are, but, uh, But the key to finding out what somebody’s priorities are, take a look at their checkbook and take a look at their calendar, where people spend their time and spend their money. That is what they’re focused on. And those are the priorities. So I would just urge everybody show up, make the effort to show up. And you’ll be amazed at what will come out of this. And that’s the thing that I would say has been most significant about the events over the past few years, women in DSO. I won’t go into those now, but I can tie directly several successful moments within PepperPoint partnerships, strategic moments, tactical moments, relationship moments that created those simply by showing up and by having conversations that were completely unexpected. that were happening outside of the agenda, but more in the margins, out in the hallways, and running into people that you build a relationship with. Because when it comes down to a world where we try to find people that fit within our organization, creating relationship takes it away from theoretical into knowing somebody, and we will always choose people that we know over people you’re about to drive organizations for it. And so that’s what I would just say about this event. This is one that is absolutely must attend from my standpoint. If I put down a list of five or six or seven opportunities for the year, this is always going to be in the top 30. Well, you make it real.

Dr. Aman Kaur: I appreciate it.

Bill Neumann: There you go. You make it really good.

Dr. Aman Kaur: I just want to build on this. It’s, you know, Dr. White, a male CEO, because that’s the another thing I want to highlight, the gender difference, because I don’t I want to highlight that I have learned that If something is unique about our event, it is the best networking, the connections people form at Women in DSO. I’ve heard them paying dividends on it for multiple months and year after year. So I’ve seen some great friendships form at Women in DSO. And, you know, 40% of our attendees are male leaders from different organizations. So thank you so much, Dr. White, for representing that group.

Dr. Greg White: Absolutely.

Bill Neumann: Well, you do make a good you both make a good point about the value of networking. And I think, you know, we a lot of times we’ll go to these events and some of it is who’s speaking. And then I think a lot of it is also just the opportunities to network. And to your point, Dr. White, I mean, a lot of them are when you kind of look back, a lot of the they’re almost chance meetings, right? You know, we look at networking, they’re not necessarily scheduled ahead of time, right? These are you talking to somebody that maybe, you know, was unintended, and then you see the fruits of that connection later. So that’s, that’s really important. Dr. Kor, could you highlight some of the networking opportunities that attendees can expect this year?

Dr. Aman Kaur: Yes, absolutely. So, you know, we are starting with the breakout sessions. So breakout sessions are, it is something Women in DSO is going, is starting as a program. So we are kicking it off with those breakout sessions. These are broken down by functional areas. So one is for operations leaders. Second one is for financial and CIOs. And third one is for clinical and the final, One is going to be for HR and recruiters. So this is kind of very curated group that will start their connections and raise the issues they want to address throughout the year. So as women and DSO members who are part of these functional areas, they’re meeting once a month in those functional area groups. So it’s lifelong opportunity that’s going to start there. we are going to probably kick it off among women and DSO members before going to the event. So that’s a biggest and very specific functional area because we have a lot of DSOs bringing around 15, 50, 60 people. So there’s a lot of our DSO members have started treating women in DSO event as a leadership retreat program where they bring large teams. They’d go into this joint learning and celebration together. So we want to make sure they go back with specific ROI that pertains to their functional area. So that’s first one. And then we talked about our Rise and Lead Reception Program that will have all the state association directors and a lot of folks from dental school academics in addition to DSO folks. So we are excited about bringing that new group into this DSO mix and making sure they learn about DSOs because there’s, you know, always a stigma attached around DSOs. We just kind of make them part, welcome them and make them part of this. And then we have throughout the general sessions, there are going to be various breaks that are designed around these functional areas. Again, we will be expanding them into the next day. And our President’s Invitational is going to be around the C-suite folks from the DSOs and some of our dental industry vendor and manufacturing partners. But it is hand-picked people who will be coming to President’s Invitational. Then everyone’s favorite bash is what is going to be the celebration at the end of everything.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Thank you. And as we move on from this event, again, I’ll just say, if you haven’t registered, do it now. We’ve got the code GDN26. You can save 20%. We’ll put a link up and give you the registration link for sure. This Empower and Grow event in Las Vegas is not the only event that you have going on. You’ve expanded globally. You’ve got, you have an event coming up in Toronto and you have one coming up in London. So can you talk about these other events that you have going on?

Dr. Aman Kaur: Yes, really, yes, happy to. So the both are going to be, it’s going to be second year for both events. So Canada event is going to be following the Ontario Dental Association meeting. It’s in May and it’s in Toronto and it’s our second year doing this. Last year, we had around 250 people that came and attended and I heard 250 is a big number to get in Canada. And something unique over there, there was no one on their cell phones during sessions. So that was very encouraging. So I’m excited to go back and we have now five different DSOs who have joined us just in last few months. So we have a huge following there. So we want to make sure there’s a networking opportunity in Canada. So really excited about that. And Global DSO Summit is also our second year. We did it last year in Germany, Cologne. This year, we are doing it at Royal Lancaster in London. I’m really excited about that event because this is going to bring cream of the cream of DSO executives from around the world. So I have Dr. White traveling to London. There are a few other, some of my colleagues favorite CEOs from the United States coming to that event. We have folks coming from Asia, from Switzerland, of course from Europe. So really excited to showcase that agenda. It should be released in a few weeks.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, and Dr. White, I’d love to get your perspective on your reason for traveling out to London. I mean, you see a benefit to networking with some of these DSOs and the different countries, I think, to a degree, do things vastly different, right, as far as healthcare goes and dentistry. But I’m curious, I think you’re gonna be speaking, but beyond that, is there other reasons behind it?

Dr. Greg White: Yes. So the primary, my reason for going to any of these is never to go as a speaker. I only agree to speak on things that I think are valuable to attend. And one of the messages that I think needs to be shared throughout dentistry in general, not just through the DSO world, is the value of investing in the value of companies and businesses and practices. You know, I always made every single decision I ever made as a dentist, and I still do so through the lens of what’s in the best interest of the patient. I don’t think there’s ever a bad time to have a primary focus on the patient as a bad strategy. It’s always a great strategy. And I find that if that’s the focus, everything else tends to work out well. So in the DSO world for the last several years, the strategy for transferring assets from one group practice to another has been through arbitrage. It’s this whole idea that we’re going to buy it at one multiple and sell it for a higher multiple. And I think people have found out over the course of the last two and a half years, that’s not a great strategy going forward. That the best strategy going forward is how do I build value within the practice through dentistry. How do I build value in the chair? How do I build value in the four walls of this dental practice? Value is built one dentist at a time, one relationship at a time, focusing on the patients, focusing on care. How do we do that? What is the best way to go about that? So really getting down to the just the brass tacks and the grassroots of building a dental office and then multiple dental offices into an incredible practice and then practices into great organisms. So that’s really what my focus has been for the 35 years that I’ve been in dentistry is how do we continue to elevate care. So I love having these opportunities like the women in DSO present through Empowering Growth, through the meeting in Toronto, and through the worldwide meeting in London, is there’s an opportunity to talk about it. There’s an opportunity to talk about something other than Equi events and arbitrage and EBITDA. There’s an opportunity to talk about How do we build value in a practice? How do we build value for the patient? How do we put them first and make those decisions for them? And how can that benefit everyone? So it’s really going back to my early beliefs in what a dental office should be and how it can be that again.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Yeah, there’s some great insights. As we start to wrap this up, Dr. Kor, I’m curious, like what’s, what’s ahead for women in DSA? You’ve got, got a lot on the docket already. But as the organization continues to evolve, you know, where are you focus, focusing your time and your team’s time?

Dr. Aman Kaur: Now, thank you for asking it. Our next four or five years are going to be really important for us. And we are gearing up for this because first five years has been our mission is to give women. more visibility, access to opportunities and creating mentorship programs for them in education around that so they are ready to go when their opportunity presents. And we want to continue to build on that. So that’s where what we all the learnings we are doing. We are bringing learnings from all around the world. That’s the reason behind global expansion and take some of the learnings from here and also share with across other countries and but we are also learning a lot of things from other countries because dentistry is evolving at the fastest speed ever. With that said, for our next three year, our strategic initiatives are around building our programs. And we are launching this internal community for our members, where they will be able to get answers to questions at just as quick as they would get it from chat GPT or some other ways. And these are vetted answers. They know if they have a question about a vendor, they don’t have to waste time or waste money, and they can just talk to someone who has worked with this specific vendor, how to get the most out of this, any business deal, and how to bring that back to their organizations. We’re kind of working on building that internal community and platform around it. So a lot of work is getting done around that. In addition to that, we are going to continually provide access and visibility to our member organizations. So we want to highlight all these mission-based organizations, because one of my favorite thing is that we are dentistry is a women-dominated industry. and what we need to get more of those women into leadership positions. And I don’t want to forget to mention, I’m at Dr. White’s organization. I have worked with the organization now for five years. And I’ve seen so many impressive women leaders, Dr. White, CFO, Julie as their Chief Strategy Officer. I feel they are really empowered. And we want to highlight these organizations. And these organizations are wildly successful. And there’s a reason for that. So I think that’s what we want to continually build on and elevate the industry. And we want to elevate by elevating the people doing the work.

Bill Neumann: Well, thank you both, Dr. White and Dr. Kaur. This is a great conversation. Again, if you haven’t registered yet, Empower and Grow, it’s coming up. I mean, it’ll be here before you know it. So make sure you get registered. It’s the 5th through the 7th of March. at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, GDN Group Dentistry Now, 26, saved 20%. And again, thank you both, great insights, a lot going on in women in DSO, and now everybody’s up to date on where things are headed.

Dr. Greg White: Yeah, sure, absolutely.

Bill Neumann: Yeah, I am.

Dr. Greg White: First of all, what Amon said, it’s true. I’m the only male in on the executive team. And it’s not because I was, it was intentional by design. I just put the best people in those positions. And it just turns out that they, they’ve been women. But I want to make one last push for showing up. You know, I think it’s important to always put yourself in the flow of trust, opportunity, influence, and growth. And when we make a decision to be absent, we’re quietly opting out of all four of those. And the easier it becomes to not show up, the more valuable showing up becomes. Most people won’t do it, and that’s precisely why it works. So I look forward to seeing all of you guys in Vegas early March.

Bill Neumann: Excellent. Great way to finish things off. Thank you, Dr. White and Dr. Korb. And thanks, everybody, for watching or listening in. Until next time, this is the Group Dentistry Now Show.

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