Amir Rad began his journey at University Canada West on a quest for new opportunities. Two years later, after completing his Master of Business Administration degree, he found just that by landing a position with a company paving the way for a new era in dentistry.

Amir, who has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biomedical engineering, decided to pursue his MBA after starting a company in Iran, designing patient-specific surgical implants. He said that while he knew the science, he struggled with the business side of things – like how to manage an organization and properly price and promote his products and services.

“I had a hard time controlling and managing things in a proper way and an efficient way,” he said.

Initially, Amir started doing his research, reading books and articles on human resources and how to efficiently run a company. But, he said, after about a year he realized he still had a lot to learn and decided to pursue his MBA in Canada.

“I’m always looking for new opportunities and this is the main reason that I moved to Canada,” he said, adding, “I’m a huge geek and a huge fan of technology. I found that [Canada] is a homeland for technology and startups. So, I decided to move to Canada to pursue my education in business.”

Amir enrolled in UCW’s MBA program in 2018.

About his time at UCW, Amir said, “It was really good. It was much more than I expected… despite COVID and having to continue our education remotely. I really enjoyed the time that I had at UCW.”

Immediately after graduating, Amir had three job offers from local companies – including one from Implant Genius, a dental implant planning and consultation company based in the Vancouver area. He said he accepted the position at Implant Genius right away and was quickly appointed Head of Research and Development.

“I really enjoy research and development in technology companies,” he said. “I’m mainly focused on the 3D printers, image processing software, placement, procedures and patient-specific implants.”

Amir and Implant Genius Founder and CEO Dr. Kevin Aminzadeh talk about the company, and the benefits of bringing in someone with an MBA, on the next episode of UCW’s Innovation Fuel podcast.

They tell hosts Dave Keighron and Dr. Gelareh Farhadian that Implant Genius aims to usher in “the next era of implant planning, the next era of dentistry and that is through artificial intelligence, through expertise-driven implant planning.”

“Finding Amir has been life-changing for our business,” Dr. Aminzadeh said. “You’ve got a biomedical engineer, he talks your [language], he knows your stuff and then on top of that… he’s an MBA. I had this peace of mind, this serenity all of a sudden, that I can let go. I was handling so many different things so many balls in the air, thinking strategy and you know what? I’m a dentist… I’m not supposed to think next level but, you know, when you have an MBA, it’s like having that Ferrari, that powerhouse, within your company. And there’s MBAs and then there are MBAs – you’ve got doers and you’ve got talkers, and Amir is a doer.”

Innovation Fuel is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.

Published on Nov. 29, 2021.