16 Influential Leaders in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in Australia and New Zealand

Last updated: August 2026

Introduction

Every blood test, biopsy result and diagnostic scan a patient receives in Australia or New Zealand passes through a system built and run by real people. This article names sixteen of them: the current leaders of the region's joint professional college, its three largest listed pathology providers, New Zealand's largest private laboratory group, the national blood service, a state forensic-medicine institute, the private-pathology peak body and the New Zealand laboratory-accreditation body.

Every person named here currently holds the exact title given next to their name, confirmed on their own organisation's official page or a first party appointment announcement, as of August 2026. The list spans clinical and executive leadership: presidents, chief executives and chief medical officers who between them are accountable for how pathology and laboratory medicine actually gets delivered across both countries.

This is a genuinely cross-Tasman list rather than a single-country snapshot. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) is itself a joint college for both nations, and several of the organisations named here run separate country-level leadership for Australia and New Zealand. The names are presented alphabetically by surname for easy navigation, not by any measure of importance.

If you work in healthcare policy, laboratory operations, pathology recruitment or clinical governance, this is a current starting point for knowing who leads which organisation right now. Every entry below is written from that organisation's own current source, not from a stale directory or an outdated news article.

Why leadership in pathology and laboratory medicine matters

Pathology and laboratory medicine sits behind an estimated seven in ten clinical decisions in modern healthcare, yet it rarely gets the public attention given to surgery or emergency medicine. Knowing who leads each major provider, professional body and adjacent institute helps journalists, policymakers, partner organisations and job seekers find the right person quickly, and makes the sector's real structure visible rather than leaving readers to guess from outdated coverage.

Several of the organisations named here have been through genuine leadership change recently. Sonic Healthcare confirmed a global chief executive succession in November 2025, Australian Pathology welcomed a new President in August 2025, and Australian Clinical Labs is mid-transition to a new Group Chief Executive Officer at the time of writing. A directory that is not kept current quickly becomes actively misleading in a sector moving this fast, which is why this article states its evidence date plainly and names only people whose current role could be confirmed on a first-party source.

The organisations named here work on distinct but connected problems: training and accrediting the region's pathologists, running the day-to-day laboratory networks that process millions of tests a year, supplying the national blood service, investigating sudden and unexplained deaths through forensic pathology, advocating for the private pathology sector's Medicare funding, and accrediting the laboratories themselves so patients can trust the result on the page. Together, their current leaders offer a genuine cross-section of how pathology and laboratory medicine is actually organised and run in Australia and New Zealand in 2026.

1. Dr David Andrews

Chief Executive Officer, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA)

Dr David Andrews is Chief Executive Officer of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA), the joint professional college responsible for training, accrediting and supporting pathologists and senior scientists across Australia and New Zealand. He joined the RCPA in March 2024 after nine years as Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists.

That cross-college experience in specialist medical education, advocacy and the not-for-profit sector gives Andrews a strong grounding for a College now working through its own strategic plan and celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2026.

2. A/Prof Chris Barnes

National Director of Clinical Pathology, Australian Clinical Labs

A/Prof Chris Barnes is National Director of Clinical Pathology at Australian Clinical Labs, overseeing the national supervision and management of clinical pathology disciplines including haematology, biochemistry, microbiology and immunopathology. He joined the company in 2016 after working as a consultant haematopathologist with Healthscope Pathology.

A dual trained clinical and laboratory haematologist, Barnes directs the Henry Ekert Haemophilia Treatment Centre at the Royal Children's Hospital and is principal investigator on eight separate clinical trials based at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, alongside chairing the Australian Bleeding Disorders Registry with the National Blood Authority.

3. Chris Brownlow

New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory Chief Executive Officer, Australian Clinical Labs

Chris Brownlow has been Chief Executive Officer of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory for Australian Clinical Labs since joining the company's predecessor, Healthscope Limited, in 2011. Most recently, Brownlow led the executive integration of the Medlab business into Australian Clinical Labs, delivering the benefits ahead of estimates and on time.

Beyond the company, Brownlow serves as Vice President and Treasurer of Australian Pathology, the national peak body for private pathology, giving this entry a direct link to entry 15 below.

4. Dr Ian Clark

Chief Executive Officer, Sonic Healthcare Australia - Pathology

Dr Ian Clark is Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Healthcare Australia - Pathology, leading the company's entire Australian pathology division. He first became a pathology chief executive in 2007 at Capital Pathology, part of what is now the Sonic Healthcare network.

Clark's division includes well known Australian laboratory brands such as Melbourne Pathology and Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, giving him national oversight of one of the country's largest pathology operations under Sonic Healthcare's federated, pathologist-led leadership model.

5. Dr Shaun Donovan

President, Australian Pathology

Dr Shaun Donovan is President of Australian Pathology, the national peak body representing private pathology providers to government. He officially commenced the role on 18 August 2025, having served on the Australian Pathology board for four years, first as a Director and most recently as Vice President.

A practising histopathologist, Donovan describes his day-to-day clinical work as looking down the microscope and diagnosing people's cancers. As President, he has said the organisation's priority is working with the Federal Government and the Department of Health to keep pathology affordable and accessible for Australians, while pushing for new tests to be added to the Medicare schedule.

6. Dr Stephen Fairy

Chief Medical Officer, Sonic Healthcare

Dr Stephen Fairy is Chief Medical Officer of Sonic Healthcare, sitting on the company's Global Office Executive Team in Sydney. Sonic Healthcare is one of the world's largest pathology and laboratory medicine groups, with operations spanning Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

In that role, Fairy helps set the medical leadership principles that Sonic Healthcare credits for its results, reflecting the company's long-standing culture of being led by pathologists at every level, from divisional chief executives through to the group's own Chief Executive Officer.

7. A/Prof Tony Landgren

National Medical Director and Chief Pathologist, Australian Clinical Labs

A/Prof Tony Landgren has been National Medical Director and Chief Pathologist of Australian Clinical Labs since 2009, with executive responsibility for clinical governance, risk management, patient safety, regulatory compliance, quality and registrar training. He is the company's Designated Person under the terms of its accreditation with the National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA).

Uniquely dual qualified, Landgren graduated in both Medicine and Law from the University of Melbourne before training in anatomical and forensic pathology. He spent twelve years chairing the RCPA's own Board of Education and Assessment while serving as a College Director, and has also chaired the board of RCPA QAP Pty Ltd and served as a Director of NATA.

8. A/Prof Trishe Leong

President, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA)

A/Prof Trishe Leong is President of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, the joint professional college representing pathologists and senior scientists across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. She holds the role alongside her clinical position as Medical Director of Pathology and Director of Anatomical Pathology at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne.

Leong is leading the College through its 70th anniversary year in 2026, travelling to meet local members and Fellows across both Australia and New Zealand, including recent state AGM visits where she and Chief Executive Officer Dr David Andrews outlined the College's strategic plan.

9. Dr Jim Newcombe

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Sonic Healthcare

Dr Jim Newcombe is Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Sonic Healthcare, one of the world's largest pathology and laboratory medicine groups, headquartered in Sydney. He took on the role from 20 November 2025, continuing the company's long tradition of being led by a doctor.

Newcombe trained as a paediatrician, then in clinical microbiology, and worked as an infectious diseases physician before joining Sonic Healthcare eight years earlier to run its Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology business in Sydney, giving him direct laboratory operating experience before stepping into the group's top job.

10. Dr Joanne Pink

Executive Director, Pathology and Clinical Governance, and Chief Medical Officer, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood

Dr Joanne Pink is Executive Director, Pathology and Clinical Governance, and Chief Medical Officer of Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Australia's national blood service. She leads the division responsible for donor and product safety policy, medical services, transfusion policy and education, research and development, and pathology services.

Pink has more than twenty years' experience in transfusion medicine at Lifeblood and has been an executive since 2006. She chairs the Medical Director Working Group of the international Alliance of Blood Operators and has been a member of the drafting group for the Council of Europe's guide to the preparation, use and quality assurance of blood components.

11. Anoop Singh

Chief Executive Officer, Awanui Labs

Anoop Singh is Chief Executive Officer of Awanui Labs, New Zealand's largest employer of scientific staff and pathologists, and has been leading the business since 2011. Awanui operates the largest laboratory testing capacity in New Zealand, spanning human pathology, animal pathology and analytical testing.

Singh has held senior executive and director roles across the healthcare industry in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and India over 36 years, bringing a strong understanding of health-sector operations, corporate governance and government relations to Awanui's leadership.

12. Dr Richard Steele

Chief Medical Officer, Awanui Labs

Dr Richard Steele is Chief Medical Officer of Awanui Labs, New Zealand's largest private pathology provider, appointed to the role in mid-2024 after returning to Awanui in 2022 as Medical Director, Clinical Pathology. He was previously Medical Director of Wellington Southern Community Laboratories.

Steele is a former New Zealand Vice President of the RCPA and now serves as an examiner for the College while also sitting on the Medical Technical Advisory Committee for International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ), giving him a direct personal bridge between the region's professional college and its laboratory-accreditation system. He holds academic positions with the University of Otago and Victoria University of Wellington.

13. Dr Cynric Temple-Camp

Chief Executive Officer, Sonic Healthcare New Zealand

Dr Cynric Temple-Camp is Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Healthcare New Zealand, leading the company's New Zealand pathology operations as its dedicated country-level chief executive. Sonic Healthcare structures its global leadership with separate divisional and country chief executives across every market it operates in.

That country-specific leadership structure gives Sonic Healthcare a genuinely cross-Tasman presence that mirrors the RCPA's own dual-country membership, with Temple-Camp's New Zealand division sitting alongside Dr Ian Clark's separate Australian pathology division under the same global group.

14. Dr Renu Vohra

Chief Medical Officer, Healius

Dr Renu Vohra is Chief Medical Officer of Healius, one of Australia's largest pathology networks, delivering medical, para-medical and pathology services through 95 pathology laboratories and more than 2,158 patient collection centres across metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.

In this role, Vohra sits on Healius's executive leadership team, working alongside the company's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer to oversee medical and clinical standards across a network that includes the well known Laverty Pathology and QML Pathology brands.

15. Prof Noel Woodford

Chief Executive Officer and Director of Forensic Medicine, Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM)

Prof Noel Woodford is Chief Executive Officer and Director of Forensic Medicine at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Victoria's statutory forensic pathology and forensic medicine service, affiliated with Monash University's Department of Forensic Medicine.

Under Woodford's leadership, VIFM oversaw the 2025 installation of a dedicated forensic MRI scanner, making it one of only a handful of forensic medicine facilities worldwide with in-house MRI capability, and he leads the Institute's international program of collaboration and training.

16. Brian Young

Chief Executive Officer, International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ)

Brian Young is Chief Executive Officer of International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ), the Crown entity responsible for accrediting New Zealand's medical laboratories, testing laboratories, inspection bodies, building consent authorities and medical imaging providers.

Under Young's leadership, IANZ's accreditation programme this year aims to support more than 800 organisations holding around 950 accreditations, work that underpins the trust patients and clinicians place in every accredited New Zealand medical laboratory result.

What these leaders show us about the sector

A few patterns stand out across these sixteen people. The first is how tightly the professional college, the commercial providers and the adjacent public institutes are connected: several people named here hold or have held roles at more than one of these organisations, from Richard Steele's dual Awanui and IANZ roles to Chris Brownlow's dual Australian Clinical Labs and Australian Pathology roles.

The second pattern is genuine cross-Tasman structure rather than an Australia-only picture with New Zealand added as an afterthought. The RCPA is a single college for both countries, and Sonic Healthcare runs Australia and New Zealand as separate but connected divisions under the same global group, each with its own country-level chief executive.

The third pattern is organisational diversity. This list spans a professional college, ASX-listed commercial pathology providers, a private New Zealand laboratory group, a national blood service, a state forensic-medicine institute and a laboratory-accreditation body, showing that pathology and laboratory medicine is delivered through many different organisational models rather than one dominant type.

The fourth pattern is how much leadership turnover the sector has seen recently. Sonic Healthcare's global chief executive changed in November 2025, Australian Pathology's President changed in August 2025, the RCPA appointed its current Chief Executive Officer in 2024, and Australian Clinical Labs is mid-transition to a new Group Chief Executive Officer at the time of writing, a pace that makes any static directory go stale quickly.

How to use this list

If you work in journalism, health policy or laboratory operations and need to know who currently leads a specific pathology organisation in Australia or New Zealand, the entries above give you a sourced starting point with the organisation's own official page or announcement behind each name.

If you are researching potential partners, suppliers or employers in pathology and laboratory medicine, the organisational spread here can help you identify which type of organisation, from a professional college to a commercial laboratory network to a public forensic institute, best matches your own focus area.

If you are a student, trainee pathologist or early career laboratory scientist, following the organisations named here is a practical way to understand the sector's real structure, rather than relying on outdated lists that no longer reflect current leadership.

None of this requires a personal introduction or a prior relationship with any of the people named above. Every organisation listed has its own public contact channels, and the most useful next step for a reader is simply to visit the relevant organisation's own website.

Frequently Asked Questions

How was this list of leaders chosen?

The list covers the most senior current medical, clinical and executive leaders connected to pathology and laboratory medicine across Australia and New Zealand: the joint professional college, the three largest listed pathology providers, New Zealand's largest private laboratory group, the national blood service, a state forensic-medicine institute, the private-pathology peak body and the New Zealand laboratory-accreditation body.

Does this list include every pathology leader in Australia and New Zealand?

No. Pathology and laboratory medicine in Australia and New Zealand employs thousands of pathologists, scientists and laboratory leaders across public hospitals, universities, state health departments and smaller private providers. This article names sixteen current leaders of major, nationally significant organisations as an honest, sourced starting point, not a complete directory of the entire sector.

Why isn't Australian Clinical Labs' Group Chief Executive Officer included?

Australian Clinical Labs' Group Chief Executive Officer role is in a confirmed, dated transition at the time of writing, with the incoming chief executive's start date falling within weeks of this article's publication. Rather than publish a leadership claim likely to be out of date almost immediately, this article represents Australian Clinical Labs through its National Medical Director and Chief Pathologist, its National Director of Clinical Pathology and its New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory Chief Executive Officer, none of whose roles are in a similar near-term transition.

How current is the information in this article?

Every entry is sourced from that organisation's own official page or a first party appointment announcement, checked in August 2026. Leadership in this sector changes relatively often, so readers relying on this article for time sensitive decisions should confirm current details directly with the relevant organisation.

Does this list compare or judge these leaders against each other?

No. It is a directory of people who currently hold a sourced, named leadership role connected to pathology and laboratory medicine in Australia or New Zealand. The names are ordered alphabetically by surname, not by achievement or importance.

Conclusion

Pathology and laboratory medicine in Australia and New Zealand runs on a small, tightly connected group of leaders spanning a joint professional college, major commercial providers, a national blood service, a forensic-medicine institute, a sector peak body and a laboratory-accreditation body. The sixteen leaders named here currently hold sourced, named roles across every part of that system, from the microscope to the boardroom.

This list will change as leadership transitions continue across the sector, and it should be treated as a snapshot of August 2026 rather than a permanent record. A future update will only add a name once that person currently holds a specific, sourced, publicly confirmed role connected to pathology and laboratory medicine in Australia or New Zealand.

For now, the most useful next step for a reader is simple: if you want to connect with, learn more about, or partner with any of the organisations named above, their own websites remain the most reliable and current source of contact information.

Related Reading

For a broader view of healthcare leadership across the region, read 45 Essential Thought Leaders in Healthcare Leadership in Australia and New Zealand. For a global view of medicine leadership more broadly, read 20 Influential Medicine Leaders Globally to Know. For a related look at leadership in diagnostics and healthcare equipment, read 25 Most Influential Thought Leaders Globally in Diagnostics, Devices and Healthcare Equipment (2026).

Building clarity into fast changing organisations

Several of the organisations named here are navigating genuine leadership transitions right now, and any organisation moving through a change like that faces the same underlying challenge: keeping teams aligned, roles clear and momentum steady while new leadership finds its footing. If your organisation is navigating a leadership transition or building clarity into a growing team, I run keynotes, workshops and facilitated sessions on exactly that kind of leadership challenge. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, keynote speaker and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and the author of Step Up or Step Out. He works with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world. To enquire about a keynote, workshop or facilitated leadership session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.