About Us
At Pugh Leadership Academy, we are dedicated to helping dental practices transform their patient care, team dynamics, and overall culture to achieve world-class results. Jody Pugh founded our academy on the understanding that a dental practice's success is rooted in clinical excellence and the overall patient experience. Through specialized training and consulting services, we provide dental professionals with the tools, knowledge, and confidence they need to elevate their practice and create a thriving, patient-centered environment.
Background and Mission
We created PLA to guide dental professionals through the challenges of building exceptional practice cultures, improving patient satisfaction, and transitioning out of network. We believe that dental practices—private, corporate, or public health—can benefit from creating environments where patients and staff feel valued and cared for. Our personalized training programs and consulting services are designed to enhance every aspect of practice operations, from improving team communication and leadership to delivering superior customer service and patient care.
With years of experience in the dental industry, Jody Pugh understands the unique needs of private practice, corporate, and public health dental jobs. Our programs are tailored to each of these areas:
Private Practice: We help dentists build strong relationships with patients, optimize their team’s performance, and provide guidance on transitioning out of network while maintaining patient loyalty.
Corporate Dental: We focus on creating a consistent, high-quality patient experience across multiple locations while supporting staff development and leadership.
Public Dental: We work with clinics to enhance patient care and efficiency, ensuring the community receives exceptional service despite resource limitations.
Dr. Melanie and Jody Pugh are the passionate founders of Pugh Leadership Academy, driven by their journey to create a thriving, fee-for-service dental practice. Over two decades, they transitioned from feeling overwhelmed by insurance dependency to building a profitable practice that supports financial freedom, a balanced life, and a unified, thriving team. Having walked in the shoes of countless dentists, they understand the challenges of burnout, team turnover, and profit loss. Now, they dedicate their expertise to guiding other dental professionals toward creating practices that work for them—not the other way around.
Eighteen years ago, we embarked on a mission to build a dental practice that was more than just successful—it was life-changing for us, our team, and our patients. The unique combination of our backgrounds and experiences inspired this vision.
Jody’s corporate expertise laid the foundation, with a marketing degree, MBA, and years of leading sales and management across a vast territory. His knack for building transformative systems earned him recognition, including the nationwide adoption of his strategies by his company’s CFO. As a certified 7 Habits of Highly Effective People facilitator, Jody specialized in heart-led leadership, professional sales, and empowering teams to succeed.
At his side, Dr. Melanie Pugh brought her down-to-earth charm and exceptional dental skills to the mix. Her ability to connect with patients and provide compassionate care created a synergy that blended cutting-edge business acumen with unmatched patient-centered service.
Though we took every course and followed advice from top industry leaders, the systems we encountered felt impersonal and disconnected from our vision. Life tested us further when our twins were born, a blessing that brought both joy and challenges as Melanie’s health began to feel the strain.
This pivotal moment strengthened our resolve to create a practice aligned with our values—alive, connected, and fulfilling for everyone involved.