Speaker Biographies

Steve Bilt is the CEO at Smile Brands Inc. (SBI) and OneSmile, LLC. He co-founded Smile Brands (1998) & OneSmile (2015) and in 2016 combined the two businesses (“Smile Brands”). Steve has led the acquisition of three top-10 DSOs Monarch Dental Corporation [NASDAQ: MDDS] and Castle Dental Centers Inc. [NASDAQ: CASL] & Midwest Dental. In addition to numerous regional group transactions, Steve has overseen the development of over 200 de novo practices. Smile Brands has 7,000 employees and affiliated providers in approximately 600 locations across the US. Smile Brands has been recognized as a Best Place to Work by Glassdoor for three straight years (#1 in multi-site healthcare) and by Comparably as a top-10 US Large Company for Culture, Diversity and Best Places for Women in multiple years. Smile Brands has been recognized three time by Real Leaders with its Impact Award for positive impact on the world. Steve serves as Chairman of the Smiles for Everyone Foundation (“SFEF”.) SFEF is a 501 (c)(3) and has established international outposts serving eight countries. Steve was Vice President Finance for Vivra Incorporated (NYSE: V), which operated dialysis clinics & specialty physician networks in 29 states. Vivra was the second-largest provider of outpatient kidney dialysis services in the U.S. Steve oversaw M&A activities, corporate finance, and certain specialty business units. Previously, Steve was CFO at SCRS, Inc., a provider of speech, occupational and physical therapy in 10 states. Earlier in his career, he was a manager with Ernst & Young. Steve was recognized as People Focused CEO of the Year and Healthcare CEO of the Year by American Business Awards and as a top-rated U.S. Large Company CEO by Glassdoor, Comparably and CEOWORLD Magazine in multiple years. Additionally, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year in an international program sponsored by Ernst & Young and is a member of the Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Steve was also honored with the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award from the Orange County Business Journal and led SFEF to multiple American Red Cross Humanitarian Awards, NEA’s Humanitarian Award and recognition by the governments and/or monarchies of Paraguay, Thailand and Ghana. Additionally, Steve led Smile Brands to be honored with Inc. Magazine’s Inaugural Hire Power Award, as one of the nation’s top job creators and was honored by CEO Connection and the Wharton School as CEO of the Year for Social Impact. He has been honored by ACG with its Founder’s Award and by the Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business as one of 20 Notable Alumni and upon its 50th anniversary with their highest honor, the GEORGE Award for Good for The World Leadership. Steve earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara; a Master of Business Administration degree from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University; and completed the Harvard Business School Presidents’ Program. He is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) in the State of California.

Paul Feuerstein, DMD, graduated from SUNY Brook during the '60s, studying chemistry, physics, math, computer science, and MUSIC. He is a 1972 graduate of UNDMJ (now Rutgers) and is in a general practice in Massachusetts. He installed one of the first in-office computers in 1978 and has been teaching and consulting since then. He is currently the Editor in Chief of Dentistry Today, author of over 250 technology articles, and lectures at many national and local dental meetings. His work with CAD/CAM helped develop the LAVA C.O.S. intraoral scanning system. He was named Clinician of the Year at the 2010 Yankee Dental Congress. In 2020, he was named as one of the top 100 dental professionals in the world by the Global Summits Institute.

Mariya Filipova is a Fortune 20 healthcare executive turned venture investor on a mission to reconnect the dots between oral health, systemic health, and the business of healthcare. Currently, Mariya is the CEO of Proclaim Health, a precision oral-health company transforming prevention through whole-mouth cleansing technology, and General Partner at 4100DX, an early-stage venture fund backed by healthcare and dental industry strategics advancing care convergence across medicine and dentistry. Previously, Mariya served as President of CareQuest Innovation Partners, Managing Director at Deloitte, and Vice President of Innovation at Anthem (now Elevance Health), where she launched programs translating emerging science into large-scale clinical and business transformation. She began her career in finance at Barclays Capital, grounding her in the economic realities that shape healthcare innovation today. Mariya is a recognized though leader and the cohost of The Convergence Lab, a platform uniting clinicians, technologists, and investors to close the gap between what science knows and what care delivers. She serves on multiple boards and advisory councils across health technology, dental innovation, and academia. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Dental Economics, and leading forums from HLTH to Harvard Business School. Through her own story of surviving a rare tumor—one she famously named Bertha—Mariya brings an urgent, deeply personal perspective to re-imagining how healthcare heals, beginning where we least expect it: the mouth. Mariya holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Holyoke College.

Frederick M. Lowery joined the Company on March 2, 2026, when he was named Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Henry Schein, Inc. He succeeds Stanley M. Bergman, who served as CEO from 1989 to 2026. Mr. Lowery has extensive experience in growing distribution and owned product businesses – including manufacturing, R&D, marketing, and sales functions. Prior to joining Henry Schein as CEO, Mr. Lowery held various leadership positions at Thermo Fisher Scientific. From April 2024 to February 2026, he was Executive Vice President and President, Laboratory Products and BioProduction, with responsibility for Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Laboratory Products, Customer Channels, and BioProduction businesses. Prior to that role, he served as: Senior Vice President and President, Customer Channels from January 2021 to April 2024; President, Life Sciences Solutions and Laboratory Products from 2017 to 2024; Senior Vice President and President, Laboratory Products from 2014 to 2016; Senior Operating Officer, Life Sciences Solutions from 2016 to 2020; and held several additional roles of increasing responsibility at Thermo Fisher Scientific from 2005 to 2016. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lowery worked for Maytag Corporation and General Motors. He also serves on the Board of Directors of DuPont de Nemours, Inc.; as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Tennessee Technological University; on the Board of the Boulé Foundation; and on the Harvard School of Dental Medicine Board of Fellows. Mr. Lowery holds a master’s degree in manufacturing management from Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute of Engineering and Management) and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tennessee Technological University.

Jill Nesbitt is the Founder of Optimize Dental Consulting, an independent and product-agnostic firm specializing in implementing and optimizing dental software for DSOs and multi-location dental groups. She has helped hundreds of dental practices standardize their practice management software and her team provides an outsourced solution for successful software adoption incorporating change management and dental operations best practices. If you're looking for a partner for software selection to transition to cloud-based platforms or to optimize your existing tech stack and then roll out systems across your offices, we are here to step in when your team doesn’t have the bandwidth.  Beyond work, her latest adventures include learning how to sail!

Amol Nirgudkar is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patient Prism. A CPA who went on to build a dental marketing agency, he kept seeing the same thing: the phones rang, and half the callers never got booked. Eleven years ago he set out to find out why. Patient Prism has since listened to more than 300 million patient conversations, helping practices hear what each patient needed and make room for them. His belief: AI can buy the click. Only people fill the chair.