Business grad Brittany Encina redesigned her life through education and entrepreneurship
In 2018, Brittany Encina (Master of Business Administration ’25) had been working for nearly 15 years in dental offices. She started as a medical transcriptionist and worked her way up to managing multiple offices. The increased responsibility was rewarding but had its downsides—commuting an hour each way and regularly putting in 50-hour weeks, all while juggling the responsibilities of a home life with a young daughter and husband who was often out of town for work.
Seven years later, as she prepares to cross the stage with the Class of 2026, her life looks dramatically different.
Encina now runs a remote advisory and education business supporting dentists across Canada. She is also preparing to launch a professional credential program for dentists through PowerED™ by Athabasca University, AU's continuing education arm. Moreover, she works intentionally reduced hours to be fully present as a mom to her daughters: Ariella, 12, and Audrina, 5.
It was huge shift, both professionally and personally.
“When I look at where I was in 2018, it was so stressful. That’s not a life I ever want to return to, versus the life I'm living right now," Encina said. “I’m really blessed.”
One conversation put her on a new path
Encina started to notice a change in the dental industry. “Up until this point in Canada, most dental practices were just privately owned and operated,” she said. “In 2015-2016 things shifted and we started to see private equity involvement.”
Encina explained how this has grown into what are called dental support organizations (DSOs)—group practices owned by non-dentists in partnership with dentists.
When she found herself speaking to a senior executive overseeing more than 1,000 dental practices while at a conference in Las Vegas in 2018, she asked a bold question: “How do I get to your chair?”
The response she got was equally as direct. “He told me, ‘You need credentials. You can know everything there is to know about day-to-day operations, but right now, you have zero legitimacy,’” she said.
By the time Encina flew home to Edmonton, Alta., she had a plan.
Her husband Alexander picked her up from the airport and asked how the trip went. She responded with, “I’m getting my MBA.”
Choosing a university that respected her past and worked with her present
After exploring her post-secondary options, AU stood out.
This was mainly because the executive admission pathway into the MBA program would recognize her years of professional experience, even without an undergraduate degree. She was also drawn to the online and asynchronous approach to coursework.
“I loved that I wouldn’t have to go sit in a classroom,” Encina said. “My learning style is very much learning on my own, synthesizing, having conversations. So, I knew it would be a good fit for me. AU really spoke to me.”
More than just aligning with her learning style, the option to take as many or as few courses at a time as she wanted meant she could balance school with her work and family life.
Redesigning their “ideal life”
For Encina, getting her MBA wasn’t just about her career. She explained how together, she and her husband had a larger conversation about the future they were working toward, asking what was important and how they defined success.
Intentional decisions about work, family, and time followed. “We kind of mapped out our ideal life,” Encina said.
They sold their transportation business, and her husband went back to school. By the time Encina started her MBA in May 2019, he was completing an apprenticeship as a heavy equipment technician. Now instead of driving trucks, he was working on them—and home for dinner.
Encina stepped away from the dental practices she was managing to work for herself.
“I started a sort of overnight consultancy,” she said. This change allowed her to limit her work hours to only 15-20 hours a week while she was doing active coursework.
She shared that their family and friends questioned the big changes they were making. Encina explained to them that yes, their life was good, but it wasn’t what they wanted. And this was them taking some risks to set themselves up for their next stage of life.
“Why wouldn’t we make life what we want?”
Turning education into action
Initially, she enrolled at AU to simply break through the proverbial glass ceiling. “I needed to check the MBA box to grow my career—quite frankly, when I started, I was like ‘I know so much about business.’”
But then one course fundamentally changed her perspective. “Plot twist,” Encina said. “I got eviscerated by my peers in HRMT.”
All her human resource management classmates worked in very large national or international corporations with well-established systems, workplace cultures, and leadership frameworks. By contrast, Encina’s business experiences were in dental practices that typically had only eight to 10 employees. What she shared during discussions and assignments also tended to be far more negative, focused on leaders wanting total control rather than looking to motivate.
This course helped her recognize blind spots—hers and those she identified in the dental industry—ultimately changing the trajectory of her career and business.
“It was a huge realization that I think dentistry’s got this wrong,” Encina said. She started to use each course like a case study, applying what she was learning directly into her own business as well as in how she worked with her clients.
AU changed my life.
Brittany Encina
A new mission leads to exponential growth
After completing Phase 1 of the MBA program and giving birth to her second child, Encina took a break to regroup.
She had identified a gap—and now advocates for education in place of trading equity for management support from DSOs.
“Dentists learn how to be dentists and 97 per cent of practices are privately owned and operated. But nobody is teaching business to dentists so they can actually run a really good corporation,” Encina explained. “So, I was like, ‘That’s going to be my mission.'”
She used the time at home with her newborn to create her own training program to bridge the providership-ownership gap with education and help dentists learn and develop the leadership skills to manage their practices with confidence.
In 2021, she relaunched her online business as owner.dentist and returned to the MBA program with a renewed focus.
Encina sought out courses that would help her develop a specific skill or improve the teachings in her owner.dentist training program. “I saw huge jumps in my own business and also for the dentists I was working with,” she said.
Trusting her own path
Encina completed her last class in July 2025, and a few months later met one of her professors for coffee. She shared updates about the progress, and challenges, she was experiencing with her business. He encouraged her to explore getting the program she created credentialed.
Different conversations eventually led to a partnership—Encina is now preparing to launch a professional credential version of her owner.dentist program with PowerED™ by Athabasca University later this year.
“It’s a full circle moment,” Encina said. AU helped shape her and her business. Now her business is going to help educate others through AU.
Her next phase is twofold.
First, she’s excited to continue scaling her business to have greater impact in the dental industry.
The second is about staying present as a mom—and if anything, getting back more time with her family. “One of my favourite things about my business is that my oldest daughter is a competitive dancer and I can make it to every single one of her competitions—I can be fully there for her,” Encina said.
As she prepares to cross the convocation stage, Encina offers some words of advice. She encourages other AU MBA students to really use the program for themselves and to not be afraid to have an unpopular opinion.
“There’s a lot to learn about yourself as you’re going through,” she explained. “It’s about putting what your current thought process is out there, putting it against the literature, and then deciding what your perspective is going forward.”
Excited to visit the AU campus and celebrate this milestone in person with many of her peers, Encina also urges people to connect with their classmates outside of the weekly discussions.
“You’re put in a different cohort with a different group every time for a reason. And that’s so you can expand your network. But the onus is on you,” she explained. “On the back half of my MBA I actually started connecting with my peers outside of it, and it made the experience so much more fulfilling. AU changed my life.”