PG Group × UCT · Speaker notes
Final-year dental students, University of Cape Town. Preshnee Govender · Monica Steyn · Mark George · Dr R. Reddy.
Open the deckOn screen: Final-year dental students · University of Cape Town
Preshnee Govender opens the session by welcoming the students and introducing the central question that will run through the hour: your degree is your foundation, not your ceiling.
On screen: Final-year dental students · University of Cape Town
Handover from Preshnee. Frame the hour — three of us, three lenses on the same idea: your degree is your foundation, not your ceiling.
The question that has driven everything we've built: "What else is possible?" You're studying to become a dentist — but that qualification is a platform, not a limit.
60.9% — youth (15–24) unemployment in South Africa. The people who build things are the ones who create the jobs.Stats SA, Q1 2026
PG Group grew out of a legal practice (PGA Inc). As the firm grew, so did our understanding of business — and we started asking what else those same skills could build. One profession became an ecosystem.
91% — of South Africa's formal businesses are SMEs — and they generate ~60% of the country's jobs. Building a business is nation-building.Banking Association SA
Our vision is a proudly South African group that combines professional expertise with entrepreneurship and technology — where established businesses create opportunities for new ones, and growth creates employment and skills.
~34% — of GDP comes from SMEs. Ecosystems compound; single practices don't.Banking Association SA
Law · Health · Tech · Enterprise
Four arms, one philosophy. Law (PGA Inc) protects what's built; Health (PG Health) delivers care and practice solutions; Tech drives innovation; Enterprise creates new ventures and opportunity.
The health arm is why we're here today. It's not just clinics — it's a model for how a modern practice can be built, run and scaled. Which is exactly what Mark is going to unpack.
1 : 8,817 — ~6,600 dentists for ~63 million South Africans (developed-world norm ≈ 1 : 2,000). The need is real; the opportunity is real.PLOS ONE, 2021
Bridge into the business and clinical detail of dentistry.
Work? · Buy? · Build? · Partner?
University teaches you to be a clinician. It doesn't teach you premises, finance, equipment, staff, billing, marketing, cash flow. That gap is the opportunity — and it's the space PG Health occupies. (Great "ask the room" moment.)
20% — of SA's dentists work in the public sector — serving ~80% of the population. The private-practice space is wide open.PLOS ONE, 2021
Digital capture · Design with the patient · In-house manufacture · Fit & adjust chairside
Innovation isn't a slogan, it's a workflow: digital capture → design with the patient → in-house manufacture → fit & adjust chairside. No putty trays; restorations 3D-printed in our own on-site lab. Most practices outsource that and wait a week — we own the lab, so we own the speed, cost and quality.
$8.5bn → $113.6bn — clear-aligner market by 2035 (~29.6% a year). Digital is where dentistry is going.Precedence Research, 2025
This is current, not futuristic. The tech should change not just how you treat patients, but how you run the business behind them.
~24% — annual growth in dental 3D printing to 2030.Mordor Intelligence, 2025
35% — of dentists already use AI in practice.Industry analysis, 2025
90% vs 40% — AI reads caries and gum disease at up to 90% accuracy, against ~40% for conventional X-ray interpretation.Industry analysis, 2025
On screen: One shared back office. Every practice plugs in.
Billing · HR & payroll · Compliance · IT · Procurement · Marketing
The single biggest thing PG Health does for a clinician: a shared-service model. Billing, HR & payroll, compliance, IT, procurement, marketing, practice management — all run centrally. You didn't study six years to chase invoices. You stay clinical and patient-focused; we carry the rest.
"A brilliant clinician can still have a badly run business." The shared model is how you avoid that — the same logic that lets PG run four disciplines as one practice.
Chair utilisation · Collections · Costs · Retention · Profitable services
Once the doors open, the questions change: how many patients, what's your chair utilisation, are you collecting, which services are profitable? Clinical excellence and commercial sustainability have to coexist — and that's measurable, manageable, and outsourceable.
Concept · Practice · Growth
Turnkey practice solutions: site, design, equipment, systems, staffing, compliance, lab, marketing. You treat the patient; we help build the practice around you — then help it grow.
~1,900–2,300 — more dentists projected to be needed in SA by 2030. Room to build.PLOS ONE, 2021
Young grads ask "how do I get in?"; 30-year practitioners ask "how do I get out?" PG Health connects the two — buy-in, mentorship, funding prep for the newcomer; a structured, dignified exit for the retiring dentist. We lived it: when PG acquired Dr Reddy's practice, we kept the person who built it.
Practice transitions turn a career's worth of clinical knowledge from something lost on handover into something inherited.
Bridge into what makes PG Health different — and human.
Dentistry · Optometry · General practice · Wellness
Dentistry, optometry, general practice and wellness — in one practice in Sandton, operating since 2011. Not four businesses in a building; one team that shares information, systems and a philosophy of care.
4.5★ — average Google rating · operating since 2011.PG Health
Everything we've talked about — business, technology, labs — exists for one reason: the patient. Technology should strengthen the relationship between clinician and patient, never replace it. The shared-service model exists precisely so the dentist has the time to be present.
Ask not "what procedure does this patient need?" but "what does this person need?"
This is the clinical case for the "wholehealth" model — the mouth doesn't exist independently of the person, and having optometry, GP and wellness under the same roof means the whole patient is seen.
~3.7bn — people are affected by oral disease — untreated tooth decay is the most common health condition on earth.WHO, 2023
6× — the risk of poor blood-sugar control for diabetic patients with gum disease.Frontiers in Public Health, 2023
0.4–0.6% — HbA1c improvement from treating gum disease — like adding a second diabetes drug.Frontiers in Public Health, 2023
In-house labs · Shared-service back office · Multidisciplinary · Mentorship model · Innovation-led
Pull it together — this is the summary slide.
Most practices have one or two of these. PG Health is built on all five.
Return to the opening idea. You could be a dentist — and an owner, an innovator, an entrepreneur, a mentor. Build here.
135 Daisy Street, Sandton · 011 784 7408 · admin@pghealth.co.za · Wholehealth, one practice.
Market-size figures are research-house estimates — confirm against the source before quoting any precisely on stage.
Market-size figures are research-house estimates — right for a keynote callout, but confirm against the source before quoting any precisely on stage.