Building Merkaba: When Two Clinical Leaders Walked Away and Built Something Better

In the last few years, we both walked away from high-level corporate dental roles to build something of our own.

Aimee had spent years building relationships with DSO and special market partners across the country, understanding how Heartland makes decisions, what it takes to get through a Schein line review, and the language procurement teams speak. VP-level work without the VP title. When that chapter closed, she didn't wait for another one to be handed to her.

Kendra had climbed to a VP-level role, leading clinical operations and program development for an entire system. She had her Master's in Dental Hygiene, 20+ years in the industry, and a track record of building clinical infrastructure at scale. And then she chose to walk away to build something bigger.

Different paths. Different vantage points. But the same conviction: the industry had to move faster, and it had to be led by people with a clinical philosophy that traditional dentistry had never prioritized.

So when our phones started ringing with the same question from dental technology founders, it felt less like a coincidence and more like confirmation.

“We have the science. We have the device. How do we get it into practice?”

Our paths kept crossing at dental conferences through DeW and Women in DSO; that’s when we understood where we were going next. We started as colleagues, became friends, and eventually became business partners.

The Merkaba: Two Forces Coming Together

When we started talking about what we were building, the name came almost immediately: Merkaba.

The merkaba is an ancient symbol. Two opposing tetrahedrons merging to create a unified field. One pointing up, one pointing down. Separate forces that come together to create something greater than either could alone. Balance. Transformation. Ascension.

That’s exactly what we were doing. Aimee brought the distribution relationships, the understanding of how DSO and GPO partnerships work, and the commercialization experience. Kendra brought the clinical program design, the academic rigor, the systems, and strategic thinking that makes pilots actually succeed at scale.

Two clinical leaders. Two different paths. One firm built to close the gap between innovation and adoption in dentistry.

Our personalities follow the same pattern. One of us is the extrovert who moves fast and pushes hard. The other is the introvert who moves deliberately and misses nothing. It’s not a dynamic we engineered. It's just who we are, and it works.

The Gap We Fill

Here’s what we kept seeing: a dental tech company launches a product with solid clinical evidence, real innovation, and genuine potential to improve patient outcomes. They approach a DSO. The DSO says, “Show us the clinical education program. Show us the pilot data. Show us the workflow integration plan.”

The company doesn’t have those things. Not because they're not smart. They are. But building a clinical training deck in provider language, designing a structured pilot with measurable outcomes, and developing role specific activation guides for every person in a dental practice is not the same skill set as building the technology itself.

That’s the gap. And that’s exactly what Merkaba Strategy & Health Advisors was built to close.

We work with dental technology companies, manufacturers, and emerging oral health innovators who need a clinical partner who understands both sides of the table. The innovation and the implementation. We build the clinical education infrastructure, facilitate the DSO pilots, develop the go-to-market strategy, and activate the professional channel relationships that turn a great product into one that gets adopted at scale.

What Makes Merkaba Different

We’re not a marketing agency. We don’t run ad campaigns or build websites. What we do is build trust with the people who matter most: the clinicians, the DSO clinical directors, the hygienists who are advising patients at the chair every single day.

We’re both licensed hygienists, with one of us still practicing. We know what it feels like to be handed a new product and told to recommend it without any clinical rationale, without workflow clarity, without the evidence brief that makes you confident enough to put your name behind it. We know what makes a clinician say yes, and we know what makes them skeptical.

We also know the business side. We’ve worked alongside procurement teams at DSOs and GPOs. We’ve been through the line review process with major distributors. We’ve led clinical operations for entire systems. We understand how partnerships are built in this industry. We’ve done the work from the inside, and now we do it for our clients.

The Clients We Work With

Our clients range from early-stage diagnostic companies to established manufacturers entering new markets. We’ve worked with AI-powered clinical tools, oral cancer screening devices, laser technology, and advanced materials. What they all have in common is this: they have real clinical value, and they need someone who can translate that value into the language that dental professionals, DSOs, and distribution partners actually respond to.

What We Are Building

Building Merkaba has changed what our days look like, what our work feels like, and what we believe is possible.

We answer to our clients and to the mission. Not to a title, a reporting structure, or someone else’s quarterly priorities. That freedom is not lost on us. We deliberately chose it, and we protect it.

But this was never just about autonomy. We built Merkaba because we could see exactly where the industry was stuck and exactly how to move it. Every engagement we take on is a chance to prove that clinical credibility and commercial strategy are not opposing forces. That the right product, with the right infrastructure behind it, can actually change how dentistry is practiced.

That’s what gets us up in the morning. Not the grind of building a business, though that is real, but the knowledge that the work we are doing is shortening the distance between innovation and the patient chair.

We are just getting started. The pipeline is growing. The partnerships are deepening. And the problem we set out to solve is bigger than we originally thought, which means the opportunity is too.

Dentistry is ready for this. And so are we.

Aimee Vail, RDH, MHA/Ed is co-founder of Merkaba Strategy & Health Advisors. With 26 years of clinical dental hygiene experience and 8 years in commercialization, she specializes in distribution strategy, professional channel development, and enterprise partnerships. She is also the Director of Membership for Dental Entrepreneur Woman.

Kendra Flowers, RDH, MSDH is co-founder of Merkaba Strategy & Health Advisors. With a Master’s degree in Dental Hygiene and over 20 years of experience in the dental industry, she specializes in clinical program design, pilot/product implementation, and DSO operational strategy.

Learn more: merkabastrategyandhealthadvisors.com | contact@merkaba-saha.com