Some people build businesses. Others build communities. For nearly two decades, Pantea Choroomi has quietly done both.
Today, as co-founder of Smiles 4 Life – All Ages Dental & Braces and Agoura Dental Group, Pantea is known as a business leader, entrepreneur and healthcare advocate. But behind the success of her practices is a deeply personal story shaped by resilience, faith and an enduring sense of gratitude.
Her journey began far from Conejo Valley. Born into a family whose life was upended by the Iranian Revolution, Pantea’s early years were defined by displacement and rebuilding. When her father refused to compromise his principles under the new regime, the family was forced to leave everything behind and start over in Germany.
“It was not an easy journey,” she recalls. “My parents lost everything materially, but they never lost their values, their work ethic or their determination.”
Germany became a formative chapter in her life. As immigrants, her family was met with kindness and opportunity—an experience that left a lasting impression.
“I remember how hardworking, disciplined, detailed and skilled the German people were,” she says. “Germany gave my family stability, education and an opportunity to rebuild.”
Pantea thrived academically, pursuing architectural design, German literature and eventually law school. But during her second year, a family illness prompted a life-changing move to the United States. Leaving behind a clear path, she followed her parents across the Atlantic into the unknown.
What she found was possibility.
“I learned very quickly that the American Dream is real,” she says. “It took hard work, but America rewarded that hard work.”
Watching her father rebuild once again—this time in the U.S.—deepened her appreciation for the freedoms and opportunities many take for granted.
“There is not a single day that passes that I don’t feel grateful to live in this country,” she says. “My family was given freedom, safety, opportunity and a future here.”
That journey would also lead her to Conejo Valley—and to her future husband, Dr. Aaron Choroomi. On an early visit to Thousand Oaks, she felt an immediate connection.
“The mountains reminded me of the beautiful town where I grew up in Germany,” she says. “I told him, ‘If we get married, I want to live here for the rest of my life.’”
Twenty years later, that vision has come full circle. The Choroomi family built both a life and a legacy rooted in service, raising their two children while growing a thriving dental practice.
As her husband was starting Agoura Dental Group, the realities of running a healthcare practice quickly became apparent. While Dr. Choroomi excelled clinically, the growing demands of administration, operations, staffing and business management threatened to pull him away from what he loved most—caring for patients.
Pantea stepped in to help. What began as support for her husband soon evolved into a calling of her own.
“I realized that every system, every process, every employee, every improvement ultimately affected a patient,” she says. “That made the work meaningful.”
Under her leadership, the practice flourished, building long-standing relationships with local families—many of whom have returned for generations.
A new chapter began during the pandemic, when the family enrolled their children at Hillcrest Christian School. What started as helping with homework evolved into a deeper spiritual journey. Eventually, Pantea and her husband began attending church and made the decision to embrace Christianity.
“Our children helped lead us there,” she says.
Around the same time, a long-held vision began to take shape. For years, Pantea had driven past an abandoned building in Thousand Oaks, imagining what it could become.
“Most people saw an empty building. I saw possibility,” she says.
That vision became Smiles 4 Life—a modern, all-ages dental and orthodontic center designed with intention and compassion. Every detail, from the layout to the technology to the team, reflects a commitment to making high-quality care accessible and welcoming.
For Pantea, success has never been about scale—it has been about purpose.
“It’s about creating the right place,” she says. “A place where patients feel seen, where doctors can focus on care and where families feel welcomed.”
With the new concept of Smiles 4 Life, Pantea set out to solve a challenge she had seen too often in dentistry: the lack of communication between doctors across separate practices, which can delay treatment, create confusion and ultimately affect the patient’s overall care.
By bringing trusted specialists together under one roof, Smiles 4 Life offers patients a smoother, more connected experience. This model provides a double benefit: It helps advance treatment more efficiently while saving patients from the stress of traveling back and forth, scheduling multiple appointments at different offices and trying to coordinate care between separate doctors on their own.
At the heart of it all is a single guiding principle: gratitude.
“Gratitude for my parents’ sacrifices, for Germany, for America, for my family and for this community,” she says.
That gratitude is woven into every corner of Smiles 4 Life. It is the reason the practice exists. And it is the legacy Pantea Choroomi hopes to leave behind for her two children—one smile for life at a time.
Smiles 4 Life is located at 1140 E Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Suite A, in Thousand Oaks. For more information, call 805.301.7777 or visit smiles4.life/.
By bringing trusted specialists together under one roof, Smiles 4 Life offers patients a smoother, more connected experience.
“It’s about creating the right place,” she says. “A place where patients feel seen, where doctors can focus on care and where families feel welcomed.”