50 Essential Thought Leaders in Aged Care in Australia and New Zealand

Aged care in Australia and New Zealand is in the middle of the most significant transformation it has faced in a generation. The Australian Aged Care Act 2024 commenced on 1 November 2025, replacing legislation that had governed the sector since 1997 and placing a legally enforceable Statement of Rights at the centre of the system. Across the Tasman, New Zealand established its Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group in January 2026, tasked with reporting back to government by mid-2026 on the future of the sector. Behind every meaningful shift in how older people receive care, there are individuals who shape the conversation, drive the reform, challenge the system, and build new models from the ground up.

This directory brings together 50 of the most influential voices shaping aged care across Australia and New Zealand in 2026. The list spans provider executives, policy architects, consumer advocates, researchers, digital innovators, dementia specialists, home care leaders, and cross-Tasman figures whose work reaches both countries. According to KPMG's 2026 Aged Care Market Analysis, the top 25 providers now account for nearly 45 percent of all operational aged care places in Australia, 873 home care providers operate nationally, and $2.5 billion has been committed over five years to support the aged care workforce wage costs. Understanding this sector means knowing the people driving it.

The people on this list deserve to be widely known. They are not a consolation for skipping the familiar names. They are the leaders genuinely shaping the future of aged care right now, doing the hard work of translating reform into practice, of conducting the research that informs policy, of advocating for older people when systems let them down, and of building the technology and care models that will determine how an ageing population experiences the final decades of life. Whether you lead an aged care organisation, work in policy, sit on a board, care for an older family member, or simply want to understand who is moving this sector forward, this directory is your starting point.

Leadership teams in aged care, schools, nonprofits, and corporates can engage Jonno White to facilitate the conversations, culture work, and team development that helps their organisations navigate complexity and align around shared purpose. As a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, Jonno works globally with senior teams across Australia and internationally. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore how Jonno might support your leadership team.

Why Aged Care Leadership Matters

The scale of what aged care leadership is being asked to deliver is staggering. Ageing Australia's 2026 Community Expectations Report found that Australians are more than twice as likely to trust aged care once they have direct experience or greater knowledge of it, suggesting that the sector's greatest communication challenge is the gap between perception and lived reality. That gap is not closed by marketing. It is closed by leaders who consistently deliver care that earns trust, speak plainly about what is and is not working, and hold the system accountable when it falls short.

The stakes extend well beyond individual care experiences. The government committed $2.5 billion over five years to support aged care workforce wage costs, alongside a further $291.6 million for ongoing reform over the same period. The introduction of Support at Home in November 2025 is reshaping the market for home care, with 96,709 people still waiting for a home care package at their approved level as of early 2026. The workforce challenge is equally acute, with an estimated 549,000 people employed across aged care service types according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's 2025 workforce survey, and projections showing demand will continue to outpace supply for decades.

Thought leaders in this space are not only responding to the immediate pressures of reform. They are asking harder questions: what does genuinely person-centred care look like when the system remains underfunded? How do we care for a workforce that is burning out under the weight of both regulatory demand and emotional labour? How does technology serve older people rather than simply reducing headcount?

How do we ensure that First Nations elders, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and LGBTQ+ older people receive care that respects their identity and dignity? The individuals on this list are engaging with those questions in ways that matter.

If your organisation needs support building the leadership, culture, and communication foundations that allow aged care teams to do their best work, bring Jonno White in to facilitate your next leadership day or executive offsite. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria. First, they have made a substantial and documented contribution to aged care in Australia or New Zealand, through leading organisations, producing research, building advocacy, driving innovation, or shaping policy. Second, they are actively engaged in the field as of 2025 and 2026, with current roles and recent published contributions to the sector conversation. Third, their contribution is genuine and current, not historical reputation or positional authority alone.

This list draws from across the full aged care sector, including residential care, home care, dementia care, aged care design, technology and innovation, consumer advocacy, clinical research, and cross-Tasman policy. It also reflects diversity of geography, with voices from multiple Australian states and territories as well as New Zealand. Rather than recycling the same handful of names that appear on every aged care list, this directory brings together the people who genuinely deserve to be far better known as the voices shaping this field.

Peak Body and Policy Leadership

The peak bodies and policy architects who shape the regulatory and legislative architecture of aged care in Australia and New Zealand carry enormous responsibility. Their decisions, submissions, and advocacy positions translate directly into the operating environment that every provider, clinician, and older person navigates. These are the voices who sit at the table when legislation is designed, when reform implementation is debated, and when government is held accountable for the promises it makes.

1. Tom Symondson

As the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of Ageing Australia, the national peak body representing aged care providers and housing organisations, Tom Symondson has been at the centre of every significant reform discussion since 2022. With more than 20 years of experience spanning aged care, public health, and local government in both Australia and the United Kingdom, he brings rare cross-sector depth to the CEO role. His appointment in February 2026 to the Board of Directors of the International Federation on Ageing, an organisation with consultative status at both the United Nations and the World Health Organization, reflects his standing as a genuine global voice on ageing and aged care.

Tom served on the Australian Government's Aged Care Taskforce that designed the funding model underpinning the Aged Care Act 2024 and continues to serve on the Aged Care Transition Taskforce guiding implementation. His regular public commentary in Australian Ageing Agenda, on the Ageing Matters podcast, and across LinkedIn translates complex reform into accessible language, making him one of the most consistently read voices in the sector. He was recognised as a Global Ageing Influencer at the World Ageing Festival in Singapore in 2024.

2. Tracey Martin

As Chief Executive of the Aged Care Association of New Zealand, the primary peak body for residential aged care providers across the Tasman, the Hon. Tracey Martin brings an unusual combination of frontline ministerial experience and sector advocacy expertise to the role. Appointed in May 2024, she was previously New Zealand's Minister for Seniors from 2017 to 2020, during which she oversaw the development of the Better Later Life Strategy. Since assuming the CEO role she has grown the Association's membership to near 100 percent of the residential care sector, making it one of the most representative peak bodies in the country.

Tracey's advocacy centres on the structural underfunding of New Zealand's aged care system, calling for a split funding model that separates clinical care, accommodation, and living expenses, similar to the Australian model. In February 2026 she publicly reiterated the sector's commitment to equitable pay for care workers, whose skilled and demanding roles she has consistently described as systematically undervalued. Her commentary to RNZ and in Newsroom on the gap between government funding and operational reality has made her the most direct and credible public voice for the sector's viability in New Zealand.

3. Patricia Sparrow

Patricia Sparrow is Chief Executive of COTA Australia, the national peak body for older Australians, and the most prominent consumer-side voice in the country's aged care reform process. Her career has spanned community services, aged care, disability, health, and ministerial offices, and she has previously served as CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia. She joined COTA in late 2022 and has maintained a consistent focus on the rights and dignity of older people as reform has accelerated, co-signing joint submissions with OPAN on the Aged Care Act exposure draft and publicly welcoming the 2026 personal care reclassification under Support at Home.

Patricia's particular emphasis on the intersection of aged care, cost of living, housing security, and financial wellbeing for older women gives COTA's advocacy a breadth that goes beyond aged care funding debates. She has been quoted in The Australian on aged care reform, financial abuse of older people, and supermarket pricing impacts on older Australians, making her one of the most frequently cited aged care voices in mainstream media. She was appointed as an aged care advisor to federal government ministers before joining COTA and retains strong government relationships.

4. Craig Gear OAM

Craig Gear OAM has served as Chief Executive Officer of the Older Persons Advocacy Network since 2018, having previously served as the organisation's chairperson. OPAN delivers the National Aged Care Advocacy Program across Australia, providing free and confidential support to older people navigating the aged care system and ensuring that the consumer voice remains visible in every reform conversation. His OAM reflects sustained contribution to public service through aged care advocacy at a national level.

Under Craig's leadership, OPAN has developed into one of the most credible and consistent voices challenging both providers and government when older people's rights are not respected. His public response to the 2026 federal budget, in which he called for the government to prioritise greater investment in Support at Home after several implementation challenges, exemplified the organisation's role as a constructive but pointed critic of the system. He holds senior positions on multiple sector advisory bodies and has been a consistent presence in both media and government consultations throughout the reform period.

5. Samantha Edmonds

Dr Samantha Edmonds is Director of Policy, Education and Systemic Advocacy at the Older Persons Advocacy Network, where she has worked since 2020. She is a board member of the International Federation on Ageing, chairs the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing Diversity Consultative Committee, and co-chairs the National Aged Care Alliance, an alliance of more than 35 national organisations. Her background in health policy, social justice, and LGBTQ+ health gives OPAN's advocacy a breadth that extends across the full spectrum of older Australians who rely on care services.

Samantha's most prominent recent contribution has been her ongoing advocacy around the Support at Home co-contribution model, calling publicly for changes to protect older people who are reducing or forgoing essential services because of cost impacts. In April 2026 she welcomed the government's decision to reclassify personal care services as clinical care under Support at Home, a reform OPAN had long called for. In May 2026 she described the federal budget as a missed opportunity, noting that the government must also address lengthy assessment wait times and incorrect algorithmic assessments that are denying older people the support they need.

6. Liz Hefren-Webb

Liz Hefren-Webb became Australia's Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner in January 2025, replacing Janet Anderson PSM after six years in the role. She brings extensive experience from the highest levels of the Australian public service, having served as Deputy Secretary Social Policy in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where she also led the Aged Care Review Taskforce. Her appointment came at a pivotal moment, with the Aged Care Act 2024 commencing on 1 November 2025 and bringing significantly expanded regulatory powers to the Commission she now leads.

Under the new Act, the Commission's authority has grown considerably, including new powers to order refunds to older people who have been overcharged for Support at Home services. Liz's leadership of the Commission through this transitional period is one of the most consequential regulatory challenges in the sector. Her background in the National Redress Scheme and COVID-19 pandemic response, both involving sensitive consumer and stakeholder engagement under intense public scrutiny, provides relevant precedent for the difficult regulatory decisions she is navigating in aged care.

7. Sonja Stewart

Sonja Stewart is Deputy Secretary of the Ageing and Aged Care Group within the Australian Government's Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, making her the most senior public servant directly responsible for implementation of the Aged Care Act 2024 and the broader aged care reform program. She also serves as deputy chair of the Aged Care Transition Taskforce, the intergovernmental body coordinating the rollout of the new Act. Her role sits at the operational heart of the machinery that is delivering Support at Home, the strengthened Quality Standards, and the new registration framework for aged care workers.

While less publicly visible than peak body and regulator figures, Sonja's influence on the pace, coherence, and practical design of reform implementation is enormous. Every provider navigating the new regulatory framework is navigating a system that her team is designing and refining in real time. Her participation in sector consultation processes, including the Digital Transformation Tech Talk webinars that the Department has hosted for providers and IT professionals through 2026, reflects a commitment to practical engagement with the sector she oversees.

8. David Cunliffe

David Cunliffe chairs New Zealand's Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group, established in January 2026 and tasked with reporting back to government by mid-2026 with recommendations on the future of aged care in New Zealand. As a former Member of Parliament and current Chair of the Selwyn Foundation, one of New Zealand's most respected not-for-profit aged care providers, he brings both political experience and direct operational understanding of the sector to the advisory role. His combination of policy background and provider-side governance is rare and well-suited to the task of bridging the gap between what government wants and what the sector can deliver.

New Zealand's aged care reform is at a critical juncture. The sector faces chronic underfunding relative to the cost of care delivery, a demographic surge in demand, and a workforce crisis that threatens the viability of residential care in many communities. David's advisory group is producing the framework that will determine whether New Zealand takes a structural approach to these problems or continues to respond incrementally. His public engagement on ageing and care issues and his governance experience at the Selwyn Foundation give him credibility across both the policy and provider communities.

Provider Executives Transforming Aged Care Delivery

The executives leading Australia and New Zealand's largest aged care providers shape the experience of care for hundreds of thousands of older people. But the most influential provider leaders in 2026 are those doing more than managing large organisations. They are publicly articulating what is and is not working in the reform environment, championing new models of care, and pushing the sector toward a future that is more person-centred, more financially sustainable, and more honest about the trade-offs involved.

9. Linda Mellors

Linda Mellors is Managing Director and CEO of Regis Healthcare, one of Australia's largest listed residential aged care providers with more than 60 homes across every state and the Northern Territory. Regis has been recognised at both the Future of Ageing Awards and the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards, reflecting an organisational commitment to quality and innovation that goes beyond compliance with the minimum standards. Her leadership through the AN-ACC transition and the new Act's implementation has made Regis one of the most closely watched providers for how large-scale operators are adapting to the new regulatory environment.

Linda's influence extends through public commentary on workforce viability, funding adequacy, and quality improvement. As the CEO of a publicly listed provider with over A$1 billion in annual revenue, she navigates the tension between investor expectations and the quality imperatives of the new Act in ways that have direct sector-wide implications. Her board-level engagement with the reform agenda, including through Regis's public submissions and media positions, makes her one of the more visible provider executive voices on the challenges of delivering high-quality residential care at scale.

10. Russell Bricknell

Russell Bricknell is CEO of Juniper Aged Care in Western Australia and has emerged as one of the most outspoken and data-driven provider voices on LinkedIn in the sector. His regular commentary on bed shortages, workforce pressures, and funding viability is distinctive for its specificity, providing the kind of frank operational analysis that most CEOs reserve for internal briefings. His willingness to name the numbers, the pressures, and the policy failures affecting providers in Western Australia has made him a trusted reference point for executives across the sector who face the same challenges but lack his platform.

Under Russell's leadership, Juniper has maintained a focus on workforce development and person-centred care while navigating the financial pressures that have pushed several smaller Western Australian providers to the edge of viability. His LinkedIn activity in 2025 and 2026 has ranged from detailed analyses of staffing cost structures to pointed questions about government policy settings that make viability difficult for not-for-profit providers. He represents the provider voice that is most willing to speak plainly in public, which makes him valuable to the broader sector conversation.

11. Olivier Chretien

Olivier Chretien is Group CEO of Bolton Clarke, one of Australia's largest independent not-for-profit aged care providers, operating across residential care, home care, and retirement living. Bolton Clarke's position at the intersection of every major reform stream makes it an important test case for how integrated providers navigate the transition from the old system to the new. The organisation has been recognised at the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards and has been expanding its home care footprint nationally in response to the growing demand for Support at Home services.

Olivier's visibility on LinkedIn and in industry media makes him one of the more accessible provider voices in the sector. His regular commentary on reform implementation, workforce challenges, and care quality brings a perspective that spans both residential and home care, positioning Bolton Clarke as a model of the integrated provider model that government policy is increasingly encouraging. His cross-sector experience and willingness to engage publicly with the hard questions of aged care viability make him a significant voice in the current reform period.

12. Dale Fisher AM

Dale Fisher AM is CEO of Silverchain, which operates as one of Australia's largest home care providers after its acquisition of KinCare, and is making one of the clearest arguments in the sector for redefining what home care means. Since his appointment in October 2018, he has led Silverchain to treat home care as something far more comprehensive than personal care and domestic assistance, building a model that assesses, treats, and stabilises people at home, from chronic disease management to palliative care, specifically to keep them out of hospital and residential care.

Silverchain's AI virtual assistant pilot with partners Talius and CuriousThing, launched in 2025, is one of the most concrete examples of technology being used to redesign care touchpoints rather than simply automate administrative tasks. Dale's partnership approach and his sustained argument that acute home care should be the norm rather than the exception position him as one of the most forward-looking strategic voices in home care. His AM recognises his service to the sector and the community through this work.

13. Robert Read

Robert Read is CEO of Amplar Health, the Medibank-owned health and aged care organisation, and is building what he describes as a parallel health system in which the default for care delivery is the home rather than the hospital. The My Home Hospital program, operating across multiple jurisdictions including a South Australia partnership that has treated tens of thousands of patients in virtual wards, is one of the most compelling demonstrations that acute care can be safely and effectively delivered outside hospitals, including for older Australians transitioning between hospital and residential or home care.

Robert's proposition is grounded in a straightforward argument: if up to 30 percent of conditions can be safely treated at home with the right logistics, digital monitoring, and multidisciplinary team support, then the question is not whether home-based care is viable but whether the system has the courage to fund and design toward it. His engagement in the aged care sector, including virtual nurse support into residential aged care and hotel-based transition care models, extends his organisation's impact directly into the sector's most challenging operational terrain.

14. Liam Mayo

Liam Mayo is CEO of Comlink Australia, one of Queensland's largest home care and community transport providers, and one of the most active provider CEOs on LinkedIn in the sector. His commentary on the operational realities of running a community care organisation through the Support at Home transition has been practical, detailed, and frequently cited by other sector leaders. He serves as co-chair of Ageing Australia's Queensland State Member Council alongside Melissa Argent, positioning Comlink as a genuine voice in peak body governance at the state level.

Liam's leadership approach combines a strong community-purpose orientation with commercial rigour, and his public commentary consistently reflects both dimensions. His willingness to engage with the difficult questions of workforce sustainability, the complexity of the new regulatory framework for home care providers, and the impact of reform on smaller community-based organisations makes him a distinctive voice among provider CEOs whose organisations operate at the intersection of government funding and genuine community need.

15. Naomi James

Naomi James is CEO of Ryman Healthcare, the largest retirement village and aged care operator in New Zealand and a significant presence in Australia, following a major leadership transition in 2025. Ryman operates across more than 40 villages and care facilities, with thousands of employees across both countries. Her appointment comes at a critical moment for the organisation, which has been navigating a significant transformation strategy under its new executive leadership team assembled through 2025 and early 2026.

Ryman holds a unique position in the ANZ aged care landscape as a cross-Tasman operator at genuine scale. Its retirement village model integrates independent living with care centre facilities, creating a continuum-of-care offering that is becoming increasingly important as both countries push for people to remain in community settings rather than moving into residential care prematurely. Naomi's leadership of this transformation, including the organisation's strategic shift toward a future operating model designed for viability through to 2030, gives her influence across both the New Zealand and Australian aged care and retirement living sectors.

16. Chris Blake

Chris Blake is CEO of St Vincent's Health Australia, one of the country's largest not-for-profit health and aged care networks, and has articulated one of the clearest and most confronting visions for what the aged care system must become if it is to remain fundable. His stated goal that half of all St Vincent's care will be delivered in homes or virtually by 2030 is not a pilot programme aspiration. It is a strategic bet on care where people live rather than where the beds are, backed by investment in 24-hour command centres, virtual wards, wearable-driven monitoring, and multidisciplinary teams that move with the person.

Chris frames the case in hard numbers, describing the current system as unfundable within five years on its current settings. This directness, from the leader of an organisation that touches around two million patient and resident interactions annually, carries significant weight. St Vincent's is betting that if it can demonstrate the model at scale, policy will have to follow. His public commentary on the structural misalignment between how aged care is funded and how care should be delivered makes him one of the most important strategic voices in the sector.

Consumer Advocacy and the Rights of Older People

The aged care Royal Commission made clear that the voices of older people themselves, and of those who advocate for their rights, have too often been absent or ignored in the design and delivery of aged care. The Aged Care Act 2024 is built around a Statement of Rights and consumer-directed principles. The leaders in this category are those who ensure that those principles are not merely legislative text but translated into real improvements in how older Australians and New Zealanders experience care.

17. Anne Burgess AM

Anne Burgess AM is Chair of both the Aged Care Council of Elders and the Aged Care Transition Taskforce in Australia, making her one of the most important lived-experience voices in the reform architecture. Her influence does not derive from organisational scale or positional authority. It comes from moral authority and a sustained commitment to ensuring that the rights-based framework promised by the Aged Care Act 2024 actually translates into measurable improvements in how older people experience care. Her AM reflects her contribution to aged care and older Australians at a national level.

Anne's dual roles in the Elders Council and the Transition Taskforce mean she holds the consumer perspective in two of the most consequential governance structures shaping reform implementation. Her presence ensures that the voices of older people, including those from diverse backgrounds and with complex care needs, remain visible in conversations that might otherwise be dominated by provider, regulatory, and bureaucratic perspectives. Her willingness to speak plainly about where reform is falling short for real people distinguishes her engagement from the more cautious commentary that characterises many advisory roles.

18. Kaele Stokes

Dr Kaele Stokes is Executive Director of Services, Engagement and Research at Dementia Australia, the national peak body representing 446,500 Australians currently living with dementia and the almost 1.6 million Australians involved in their care. Her portfolios span Dementia Australia's client-facing services, community development, engagement, and research activities, giving her oversight of the organisation's most direct interactions with people living with dementia and their families. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has spent nearly two decades in the health and ageing sectors.

Dr Stokes's most recent contribution to the sector is the Tell TiNA tool, launched in 2025 to help aged care workers and providers assess the skills and training they need to meet the new Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards for dementia care. Her public advocacy for the reclassification of personal care services as clinical care under Support at Home, welcomed in April 2026, reflected Dementia Australia's evidence-based position that people living with dementia are disproportionately affected when essential daily care is subject to co-contributions. She is a finalist in the 2026 Australian LGBTQ+ Inclusion Awards in the Executive Leadership category.

19. Camilla Rowland

Camilla Rowland is Chief Executive Officer of Palliative Care Australia, the national peak body for palliative care, and brings a critical perspective on one of aged care's most consistently under-resourced dimensions. Only 2.4 percent of Australians living with dementia receive palliative care, compared with 75.4 percent of those with cancer, a disparity that reflects deep structural and cultural failures in how aged care and palliative care systems intersect. Camilla's advocacy works to close that gap, building the case for palliative care as a fundamental right rather than an optional or specialist add-on.

Camilla's engagement with the aged care reform process, including through Palliative Care Australia's submissions on the Aged Care Act and the Support at Home transition, has focused on ensuring that end-of-life care receives the funding, workforce, and quality attention it deserves. Her organisation's National Palliative Care Week 2026, themed 'Getting to the Heart of It,' reflects a commitment to making conversations about dying and end-of-life care more accessible and less frightening for older Australians and their families. She is one of the most important voices ensuring that aged care reform does not overlook its most intimate dimension.

20. Katherine Ravenswood

Professor Katherine Ravenswood is a professor of industrial relations and leads the Care/Work Research Group at Auckland University of Technology. She is one of the most rigorous academic voices on the intersections of gender, power, and workplace relations in aged care and home care settings, with a particular focus on the workforce of predominantly women who deliver care and whose wages and conditions have historically been undervalued. Her research has been cited in New Zealand's policy discussions on aged care pay equity and workforce sustainability.

Katherine's work sits at the junction between labour relations scholarship and the practical policy challenges of sustaining a care workforce that is under simultaneous pressure from demographic demand growth, regulatory changes, and pay equity obligations. Her Care/Work Research Group at AUT has produced a body of work that informs how policymakers and providers think about the relationship between pay, conditions, workforce stability, and care quality. Her voice is important in a sector that is frequently discussed in terms of its funding model and regulatory architecture but too rarely from the perspective of the workers who deliver the care.

Research and Clinical Leadership

Aged care policy and practice should be grounded in evidence. The researchers and clinicians on this list are producing the knowledge base that gives reform its legitimacy, identifies where the system is failing, and points toward what better care looks like. Their work spans health economics, gerontology, palliative care, dementia, clinical quality, and the social determinants of healthy ageing. Without their contribution, aged care reform would be guided by advocacy and anecdote rather than evidence.

21. Professor Kathy Eagar AM

Professor Kathy Eagar AM is an adjunct professor at both the UNSW Faculty of Medicine and Health and Queensland University of Technology, and is the architect of the Australian National Aged Care Classification, known as AN-ACC, the funding model that now determines how residential aged care is financed across Australia. Her design of AN-ACC translated decades of health services research into a practical classification system that replaced the Aged Care Funding Instrument, which had become widely recognised as no longer fit for purpose. Her AM, awarded in 2024, reflects her contribution to health services.

Kathy has continued to be a prominent public voice on aged care policy, publishing regular commentary in Pearls and Irritations and Inside Story that challenges the adequacy of the Support at Home co-payment model and the financial pressures facing home care providers. Her December 2025 article on stereotypes about wealthy baby boomers skewing aged care policy articulated a concern that is rarely raised so directly in mainstream sector commentary. Her November 2025 address at the NSW Smart Sensing Network Ageing Forum, where she stated bluntly that the system is not ready for baby boomers, drew significant attention.

22. Professor Joseph Ibrahim

Professor Joseph Ibrahim is Head of the Health Law and Ageing Research Unit at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Monash University Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, and an adjunct professor at La Trobe University's Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care. With more than 30 years of clinical experience as a practising consultant physician in geriatric medicine, Joseph combines rigorous academic research with frontline clinical practice in a way that gives his work unusual practical authority. His research centres on medico-legal death investigation, elder abuse, dignity of risk, and quality of clinical care in aged care settings.

Joseph provided evidence to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and has been cited in multiple Senate and parliamentary inquiries examining aged care quality and safety. His ongoing research on injury prevention for residents in aged care facilities and his work examining the quality indicators for dementia care are directly relevant to the implementation of the new strengthened Quality Standards under the Aged Care Act 2024. His commentary in The Conversation and Hellocare reaches both specialist and general audiences, making him one of the more accessible academic voices in the sector.

23. Professor Jennifer Tieman

Professor Jennifer Tieman is a Matthew Flinders Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying at Flinders University, and leads CareSearch, the national palliative care knowledge base that supports health professionals across all care settings including aged care. Over the past decade she has secured and led grants worth more than $80 million in palliative care research and knowledge translation, including the Dying2Learn Massive Open Online Course that has engaged more than 6,000 participants in community conversations about death and dying in Australia.

Jennifer's most recent peer-reviewed contribution, co-authored with Olivia Farrer and published in December 2025, examined the implications of aged care reform for allied health workforce capacity to deliver palliative and end-of-life care, finding significant gaps that the reform process must address. Her CareSearch project team received the 2024 Vice Chancellor's Award for Research Impact and Engagement for its work co-designing resources with end users and supporting knowledge translation from research into practice. Her focus on building community awareness and capability around end-of-life care is essential for a sector that still struggles to have honest conversations about dying.

24. Professor Anna Barker

Professor Anna Barker is a registered physiotherapist who joined HammondCare in July 2025 to lead Hammond Innovations, the research, innovation, philanthropy, and knowledge translation arm of one of Australia's most respected aged care providers. With more than two decades of experience across health, aged care, and health innovation, she has a strong track record in translating research into practice at scale, including leading large-scale innovation and research programs that have shaped how care is delivered in aged care settings. Her particular interest is in digitally enabled care models and how technology can be integrated into practice in ways that genuinely improve quality of life.

Anna's arrival at HammondCare positions one of the country's most innovation-oriented aged care organisations with a leader who combines clinical depth, research rigour, and implementation expertise. HammondCare's reputation for person-centred dementia care, its Green Houses model of residential care, and its palliative care programs create a platform for research and innovation that can influence the broader sector. Her LinkedIn presence and public engagement in the sector reflect a commitment to making research findings accessible and actionable for the practitioners who need them.

25. Dr Monica Cations

Dr Monica Cations is a researcher affiliated with Flinders University whose work focuses on clinical quality indicators for dementia care in Australian aged care settings, including her landmark 2021 study published in Scientific Reports that used national data linkage to examine trends and geographic variation in dementia care quality across nearly 374,000 people with dementia in aged care between 2008 and 2016. Her research is co-authored with colleagues at UNSW's Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, Monash University, and the Registry of Senior Australians at SAHMRI, reflecting the collaborative, data-intensive approach that characterises the most impactful aged care research.

Monica's work sits in the critical space between epidemiology and clinical practice, examining not just whether care meets standards on paper but whether measurable quality indicators are trending in the right direction at the population level. Her contribution to the Flinders Ageing Alliance, a transdisciplinary research hub at Flinders University built from 13 large research teams, extends her influence into an interdisciplinary environment that brings together clinical, technology, and policy perspectives on healthy ageing.

Innovation, Technology, and Digital Transformation

Aged care is undergoing a digital transformation that goes far beyond digitising paper records. AI-assisted clinical monitoring, virtual care delivery, assistive technology, data analytics, and workforce management platforms are beginning to reshape how care is delivered, resourced, and evaluated. The leaders in this category are driving that transformation, whether through the organisations they lead, the platforms they have built, or the research and commentary that frames how the sector thinks about technology's role.

26. George Margelis

Dr George Margelis is a medical practitioner and one of Australia's most influential voices on digital health and technology in aged care, having spent more than 30 years at the intersection of medicine and information technology. He is a founding member of the Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council, which he has chaired, and has served as Chief Technology Advisor to Ageing Australia. His academic appointments include an adjunct associate professorship at Western Sydney University's TeleHealth Research and Innovation Laboratory.

George's value to the sector is his ability to translate complex technology questions into policy-relevant language and to challenge the sector when it adopts technology without adequate understanding of its implications for older people's safety and dignity. His commentary at ITAC conferences and in sector publications consistently returns to the question of whether technology is serving older people or merely making organisational operations more efficient. His Ageing Australia role has given him a platform to shape the sector's digital transformation strategy at a national level.

27. Rob Covino

Rob Covino is Founder and Managing Director of Mirus Australia, the leading data analytics platform for residential aged care providers. Mirus Metrics, the platform's flagship product, is used by more than 100 aged care organisations representing over 90,000 residential aged care beds and $8.3 billion in revenue under management. Mirus was the first software developer to achieve web services-ready status from Services Australia across multiple aged care categories. Rob's data-driven commentary on sector performance, including regular public analysis of AN-ACC management, RAD pricing trends, and staffing compliance patterns, has become essential reading for provider executives.

Rob's July 2025 analysis of RAD pricing patterns across the sector, showing that over 80 providers had reduced their highest RADs while more than 280 simplified their offerings, was cited widely in sector media and reflects the calibre of his public data contributions. His role at Inside Ageing events and his LinkedIn presence bring a rigorous evidence base to sector conversations that are sometimes dominated by anecdote and advocacy. Mirus AI's Careverse initiative, recognised as highly commended at the 2024 Future of Ageing Awards, represents the platform's direction toward clinical data standardisation.

28. Jennene Buckley

Jennene Buckley is a Founding Partner of Enkindle Consulting and one of the most respected strategic advisors in Australian aged care. After 20 years as CEO of Feros Care, during which she grew the organisation from $3 million to over $100 million in annual revenue while pioneering digital service models, telehealth programs, and smart home technology for older people, she now works across the sector to support providers, government, and peak bodies navigating reform. She is a Global Ageing Influencer from the 2021 Global Ageing Festival and was inducted into the Aged Care IT Hall of Fame in 2016.

Jennene holds a Digital Health Adviser role with the Australian Digital Health Agency and previously held a contract with the Federal Government's Aged Care Reform Implementation Division. Her 2026 Home Care Provider Outlook Survey, released progressively through May and June and gathering insights from more than 300 providers, is one of the most important pieces of sector intelligence produced outside of government. Her LinkedIn engagement, conference presence, and ongoing advisory work make her one of the most consistently visible strategic voices in the sector.

29. Julie Anderson

Julie Anderson leads the InnovAGEING program at Ageing Australia, championing the innovation and technology transformation agenda across the sector from within the peak body for providers. Under her leadership, Australian aged care providers have been increasingly recognised at international innovation forums, including the Asia Pacific Eldercare Innovation Awards, where she has represented Ageing Australia alongside the CEO at events such as the 2025 World Ageing Festival in Singapore. Her focus is on building sector capacity for innovation, connecting providers with technology partners, and translating good ideas into replicable practice.

Julie's programs include the Strategic Innovation Program, which applies hands-on innovation frameworks to real organisational challenges, and her stewardship of the ITAC 2026 Conference and Awards, which brings together aged care providers and technology experts. Her leadership of the CaRE network and the Data and Digital Policy Group reflects a commitment to building the collaborative infrastructure through which sector-wide digital transformation happens. Her public commentary on Australia's position as a global leader in aged care innovation, particularly dementia care technology, has been influential in shaping how the sector understands its own potential.

30. James Whitelaw

James Whitelaw is Founder and Chairman of Trilogy Care, one of Australia's leading self-managed home care providers, and one of the most consistent advocates for consumer-directed care in practice rather than simply in principle. Trilogy Care's model places the older person in direct control of their Home Care Package budget, with a flat management fee and transparency that stands in contrast to the variable and often opaque pricing structures of many traditional providers. His engagement at Aged Care Week events and through sector media has made him a visible voice for the consumer empowerment agenda.

James's model has become increasingly relevant as the Support at Home reforms sharpen the focus on consumer choice, pricing transparency, and individual control over care arrangements. His willingness to argue publicly for structural changes that would shift power further toward older people in the care relationship distinguishes him from provider voices who advocate for consumer choice in principle while preserving their own pricing control in practice. As a founder and operator, his perspective combines commercial experience with genuine commitment to the model's consumer-empowerment mission.

Home Care, Community Care, and Ageing in Place

The most significant policy direction in both Australian and New Zealand aged care over the past decade has been the push toward ageing in place. The Support at Home program in Australia, the growing investment in home and community support services in New Zealand, and the broader shift away from residential care as the default response to age-related care needs are all expressions of this direction. The leaders in this category are building the systems, models, and advocacy frameworks that will determine whether ageing in place remains an aspiration or becomes a reality for the majority of older people.

31. Rohan Mead

Rohan Mead served as Group CEO of Australian Unity through a transformative period that included the $285 million acquisition of myHomecare Group, creating one of the country's most substantial home health platforms with over 50,000 customers. His consistent argument that the ageing population will overwhelm care systems that are not fundamentally redesigned around care where people live rather than where the beds are has been one of the most direct and evidence-grounded contributions to the strategic debate about aged care's future. His leadership of Australian Unity during the Support at Home transition positioned the organisation at the centre of the new home care market.

Rohan's public commentary on the structural inadequacy of the current system and his advocacy for business models that integrate telehealth, hospital-in-the-home, and AI-assisted logistics into community care delivery have been influential in shaping how policymakers and investors think about home care's future. His argument that the economics of home care can be made to work if the logistics, technology, and clinical integration challenges are solved properly represents one of the more intellectually rigorous contributions to the debate about whether ageing in place is genuinely fundable at scale.

32. Tash Edwards

Tash Edwards is a Founding Partner of Enkindle Consulting, working alongside Jennene Buckley on strategic advisory projects across the sector. Her background spans strategic planning, change management, operational transformation, and service design for aged and home care providers, and she brings a practical implementation focus to Enkindle's work that complements Buckley's more public-facing sector commentary role. Together they have built a small specialist advisory team that has worked with some of the sector's most complex transformation projects.

Tash's contribution to the 2026 Home Care Provider Outlook Survey, released progressively through May and June, reflects her deep operational understanding of what is actually happening on the ground for providers navigating the Support at Home transition. The survey, drawing on responses from more than 300 providers, found a growing sense that the pace and complexity of change is not sustainable and that the system is not yet working as intended in practice, conclusions that have influenced sector debate about the pace of further reform. Her advisory work positions her as one of the most practically grounded strategic voices in home care.

33. Tamar Krebs

Tamar Krebs is Founder and Executive Director of Group Homes Australia, a groundbreaking model of residential aged care that operates as a network of real homes in suburban communities rather than large institutional facilities. Each Group Home provides care for six to nine people with dementia, employing consistent teams of skilled carers who build genuine relationships with residents. The model demonstrates that high-quality dementia care does not require institutional scale and that smaller, home-like environments can dramatically improve quality of life for people living with dementia.

Tamar's model has attracted significant attention as an alternative to the large-scale residential care facility model that dominates the Australian sector. Her work has been featured at Aged Care Week and in sector publications as an example of the kind of innovation that the new Quality Standards and rights-based framework should enable. Her ongoing advocacy for dementia-specific, person-centred models of care, and her willingness to build those models from scratch rather than wait for the system to catch up, make her one of the most genuinely entrepreneurial voices in aged care.

34. Joanna Hikaka

Dr Joanna Hikaka is a researcher at the Centre for Co-Created Ageing Research, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, whose work focuses on culturally safe and appropriate aged care design for Maori older people. Her paper published in the Australasian Journal on Ageing in April 2026, co-authored with colleagues from Te Kupenga Hauora Maori, examined how developing aged care models that align with Maori aspirations has been identified as a national priority in New Zealand's latest Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group report.

Joanna's research is particularly important at a time when New Zealand is redesigning its aged care system and must ensure that the Maori community, which has distinctive cultural relationships with eldercare, family, and collective responsibility for older members, is not simply fitted into a system designed for the majority population. Her Centre for Co-Created Ageing Research, which develops approaches through genuine partnership with older Maori communities, represents a methodological commitment to self-determination in care design that goes beyond consultation.

Workforce, Education, and Organisational Culture

Aged care is a deeply human sector. Its quality depends not only on regulation, funding, and technology but on the skills, culture, and wellbeing of the workforce that delivers care. The leaders in this category are building the training, education, recruitment, and cultural foundations that determine whether aged care can attract and retain the people it needs to deliver the care that older Australians and New Zealanders deserve.

35. Annie Butler

Annie Butler is Federal Secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, the peak professional organisation for nurses and midwives in Australia, and is the most influential workforce voice on care minute mandates, staffing ratios, and nursing workforce conditions in aged care. The ANMF's long campaign for mandatory care minutes in residential aged care, which led to the minimum 200 minutes of care per resident per day requirement that commenced under the new Act, was one of the most consequential advocacy efforts in the sector's recent history.

Annie's influence in aged care extends to every clinical workforce question: the shortage of registered nurses willing to work in aged care compared to acute settings, the conditions under which personal care workers are expected to deliver care, and the relationship between workforce conditions and care quality outcomes. Her public commentary has included sustained pressure on government to fund the nursing wage increases necessary to make aged care employment competitive with hospital nursing. The ANMF's submissions to every major aged care inquiry and review make her organisation's evidence base one of the most consistently cited in the sector.

36. Dr Rebecca Bilton

Dr Rebecca Bilton is Director of Workforce Capacity and Capability at Aged Care Research and Industry Innovation Australia, the government-funded body that builds leadership capability and evidence-based practice across the aged care workforce. ARIIA received $13 million in additional government funding through to June 2026 in recognition of its role in strengthening evidence use and innovation in aged care. Rebecca's LIFT Leadership Program, which builds the leadership capability of frontline and management staff across the sector, has reached workers in organisations spanning the diversity of provider types and geographies.

Rebecca's work addresses one of the most persistent challenges in aged care: the gap between the leadership skills that the new regulatory environment demands of facility managers, care managers, and team leaders, and the development infrastructure that has historically been available to those roles. As the sector implements the new Quality Standards and the new rights-based framework, the ability of operational leaders to understand what person-centred care means in practice, and to build the team culture that makes it possible, is more important than it has ever been.

37. Paul Goudie

Paul Goudie is CEO of Altura Learning, one of Australia's largest aged care education and training providers, with a platform that reaches thousands of aged care workers across the sector with online learning resources tailored to the specific compliance and quality requirements of the new regulatory environment. His year-end Q&A published in Inside Ageing reflects a thoughtful engagement with the sector's leadership challenges, including workforce culture, capability development, and the relationship between staff wellbeing and care quality.

Paul's work addresses the practical question of how a sector workforce of 549,000 people, many of whom are employed casually, part-time, or through labour hire arrangements, can develop the consistent knowledge and skills that the new Strengthened Quality Standards require. His organisation's reach across the sector, and its focus on practical compliance-aligned learning rather than aspirational workforce development, makes it one of the most practically consequential education providers in aged care. His public commentary on workforce capability and the cultural dimensions of quality care is a consistent contribution to the sector conversation.

38. Kelvin Neave

Kelvin Neave is CEO of Dougherty Apartments, a Queensland-based aged care provider, and was named Leader of the Year at the 2025 Future of Ageing Awards, one of the sector's most competitive and credible recognition programs. His public reflections on the impact of that recognition, including being asked to speak at conferences and guest on sector podcasts, reflect a genuine openness about leadership that is less common among smaller provider CEOs who often lack the platform available to leaders of larger organisations.

Kelvin's recognition at the Future of Ageing Awards reflects the awards program's commitment to finding leaders who are driving genuine quality and innovation at the operational level, often in smaller or mid-sized organisations that sit outside the radar of peak body conversations focused on the largest providers. His story matters because it demonstrates that thought leadership in aged care is not a function of organisational scale, and that the leaders who are genuinely improving care for older people often operate without the institutional infrastructure that larger providers take for granted.

Dementia, Retirement Living, and Cross-Sector Leadership

The final category brings together leaders whose work spans multiple dimensions of the aged care sector, from retirement living and dementia-specific care to the media and consultancy voices that help the sector understand itself. These are the people who sit at the intersections, connecting ideas, organisations, and communities that might otherwise operate in silos.

39. Professor Tanya Buchanan

Professor Tanya Buchanan is CEO of Dementia Australia, the national peak body representing everyone affected by dementia in Australia. Dementia Australia represents 446,500 Australians currently living with dementia and advocates for research, support services, and the workforce training needed to deliver appropriate care across all settings. Her leadership of the organisation through the aged care reform period has included consistent advocacy for the position that dementia care must be explicitly integrated into the new regulatory and funding frameworks, not treated as a clinical subset of general aged care.

Under Tanya's leadership, Dementia Australia has engaged with the 2026 national $3 billion aged care investment announcement, welcoming the reclassification of personal care as clinical care and the $200 million allocation for Specialist Dementia Care Program units. Her May 2026 national palliative care week messaging, connecting dementia with end-of-life care conversations, reflects an organisational commitment to integrating the full arc of a person's experience with dementia into the public and policy conversation, from diagnosis through to death.

40. Ian Yates AM

Ian Yates AM served for many years as CEO of COTA Australia before transitioning into the role of Acting Inspector-General of Aged Care, the independent oversight body established by the Aged Care Act 2024 with the power to review, report, and make recommendations on how the aged care system is operating. His long tenure at COTA gave him deep knowledge of the consumer advocacy landscape, and his current role as Acting Inspector-General positions him to provide the kind of independent systemic scrutiny of the reform's implementation that the new Act specifically envisaged.

Ian's AM reflects his sustained contribution to aged care and older Australians at a national level over several decades. His move from the peak consumer body to the independent oversight function reflects a career trajectory that gives him unusual credibility with both consumer advocates and system insiders. His engagement at the 2024 Aged Care Week conference and through public commentary reflects a commitment to using the Inspector-General role to genuinely hold the system accountable for the promises it has made to older Australians.

41. Graeme Prior

Graeme Prior is CEO of Hall and Prior Health and Aged Care Group, a West Australian family-owned aged care provider operating across Australia and Ireland, and is President of the International Federation on Ageing. His dual role as an operational provider CEO and the leader of the global IFA positions him at an unusual intersection of domestic practice and international policy. His Member of the Order of Australia, awarded in 2025, recognises his contribution to aged care and Alzheimer's disease research.

Hall and Prior's international footprint, including operations in Ireland, gives Graeme a comparative perspective on aged care models that few Australian provider CEOs possess. His leadership of the IFA, which works with the United Nations and the World Health Organization on global ageing policy, extends his influence into global governance conversations about how ageing populations should be supported across very different national contexts. His engagement with the IFA board alongside Tom Symondson reflects the growing international dimension of Australian aged care leadership.

42. Jennene Buckley and Tash Edwards at Enkindle: 2026 Home Care Outlook

Note: Both Jennene Buckley (entry 28) and Tash Edwards (entry 32) have been included in their own categories. Entry 42 is allocated to the following individual.

42. Simon Owen

Simon Owen is CEO of Eureka, a retirement village and affordable rental operator that he is building into what he describes as a new investable asset class for over-50s and all-age rental housing. Previously, as CEO of Ingenia Communities, he led the transformation of that organisation into one of Australia's leading land lease operators, driving the sector to be recognised as a genuine real estate asset class. His pivot to Eureka is premised on the argument that affordable rental housing for older Australians is one of the most underserved markets in the country, with enormous social impact potential and commercial viability.

Simon's work connects the aged care sector's housing dimension to the broader Australian housing crisis, arguing that solving the accommodation challenges of older Australians, particularly those who rent, requires new property models that go beyond the traditional retirement village DMF structure. His engagement at the Leaders Summit 2026 and through sector media reflects a willingness to challenge the sector's assumptions about what retirement living should look like, and who it should serve.

43. Chris Baynes

Chris Baynes is Founder and CEO of DCM Group, Australia's leading media and research group covering retirement living, aged care, and seniors housing, including The Weekly SOURCE publication that serves as one of the sector's most important intelligence sources. His role at the Leaders Summit as a convener and commentator makes him one of the most influential framers of how the sector understands its own strategic challenges. DCM's analysis, including the finding that one aged care CEO exits the sector every month on average, shapes how government, providers, and investors think about sector leadership sustainability.

Chris's value to the sector is his ability to synthesise information across provider types, geographies, and service streams into a coherent picture of where the sector is heading. His DCM Executive Recruitment arm, led by James Teodoro, directly addresses the leadership pipeline challenge that his media arm has identified, connecting providers with the executive talent needed to navigate the reform environment. His engagement with the sector at every level, from individual facility operations to national policy, gives him an unusually broad vantage point.

44. Professor Perminder Sachdev AM

Professor Perminder Sachdev AM is Scientia Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW Sydney, and Research Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the Prince of Wales Hospital. He has published over 900 peer-reviewed journal papers and six books, and his research into cognitive ageing, dementia, and vascular contributions to cognitive impairment is among the most cited in the world. He was awarded the Ryman Prize in 2022 by Ryman Healthcare for more than 30 years of research into the causes and treatment of psychiatric disorders including dementia.

Perminder's research connects directly to aged care through its implications for how dementia is understood, diagnosed, prevented, and managed in care settings. His Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW partners with aged care providers, researchers, and policymakers to translate neuroscience research into clinical and care practice. His engagement at the Australian Dementia Research Forum 2026 and his ongoing collaboration with Flinders University researchers through the Registry of Senior Australians reflect the interdisciplinary reach of his work across the sector.

45. Roald Versteeg

Roald Versteeg is General Manager of Policy and Advocacy at Ageing Australia, working directly alongside CEO Tom Symondson on the organisation's government relations and advocacy agenda. His role at the intersection of provider-side advocacy and government engagement makes him one of the most practically influential people in the day-to-day management of the peak body's relationships with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and the broader federal government apparatus. His participation in the Ageing Matters podcast alongside Tom Symondson in February 2026 gave the sector direct insight into how Ageing Australia is thinking about the implementation challenges under the new Act.

Roald's work translating complex policy developments into actionable guidance for members, and managing the organisation's government consultation contributions, underpins much of Ageing Australia's effectiveness as an advocacy body. His engagement with members through webinars, publications, and state conference programs reflects a commitment to ensuring that the sector's voice in policy processes is backed by genuine member intelligence rather than peak body assumptions about what providers think.

46. Mark Brockhus

Mark Brockhus is a New Zealand-based aged care and retirement living leader with a background spanning operations, governance, and sector strategy across multiple providers and settings. New Zealand's retirement living sector faces a structural supply shortfall, with the JLL 2023 Retirement Villages Market Review identifying 470 retirement villages housing around 53,444 residents but still falling short of future demand requirements, and with non-Big Six operators accounting for more than half of all villages but facing limited incentives to invest in aged care beds. Leaders navigating the New Zealand market's particular structural dynamics are essential voices in understanding the cross-Tasman landscape.

The New Zealand aged care sector's challenges differ from Australia's in important ways: a less developed peak body infrastructure, a funding model that does not separate clinical care from accommodation costs, a smaller population base that makes economies of scale harder to achieve, and a faster-moving demographic transition given New Zealand's age profile. Leaders who understand these dynamics and are building sustainable models within them deserve wider recognition across the sector.

47. Linda Feldt

Linda Feldt is CEO of ACH Group, a South Australian not-for-profit that provides residential aged care, home care, and retirement living services, and was named a winner at the 2024 Future of Ageing Awards for a care innovation project recognised for its practical impact and scalability. ACH Group's longstanding commitment to person-centred practice and its role in piloting new models of reablement and independent living support across South Australia give it an influence in the sector that extends well beyond its geographic base.

Linda's leadership of ACH Group through both the AN-ACC funding transition and the commencement of the new Act reflects the particular challenges facing mid-sized not-for-profit providers that lack the scale of the largest operators but maintain a depth of community connection and purpose-driven culture that larger organisations often struggle to replicate. Her engagement at national forums including the 2024 Future of Ageing Conference, where ACH Group's work was presented as a model of quality innovation, positions her as one of the more visible state-based provider voices.

48. Faye Spiteri OAM

Faye Spiteri OAM is CEO of Fronditha Care, one of Australia's leading providers of culturally and linguistically diverse aged care services, with a particular focus on the Greek community in Victoria. Her OAM reflects sustained contribution to aged care for culturally diverse communities. Fronditha Care's model demonstrates that genuinely culturally appropriate aged care, in which care is delivered by people who speak the language, understand the customs, and share the cultural background of residents, produces outcomes that mainstream services struggle to replicate.

Faye's leadership is important in the context of an aged care reform process that has made cultural safety a Quality Standard requirement for the first time. The strengthened Standards now explicitly require providers to deliver services that respect cultural, linguistic, spiritual, and personal identity, but building systems that actually meet that requirement for the millions of Australians from diverse backgrounds who are ageing requires specialist knowledge and community relationships that organisations like Fronditha Care have developed over decades. Her public advocacy for CALD-appropriate care investment is an important corrective to reform conversations that risk being designed primarily for the Anglo-Australian majority.

49. Dr Claire Dale

Dr Claire Dale is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Pensions and Intergenerational Equity Hub at the Economic Policy Centre, University of Auckland, and one of the most consistent academic voices on the economics of aged care in New Zealand. Her 2025 working paper 'Aged Care in a Changing World: Good, Better, Best,' drawing on stakeholder interviews across the sector including clinical managers, CEOs, providers, and health funding portfolio managers, provided a timely and rigorous assessment of where New Zealand's aged care system stands and what structural changes are needed to make it sustainable.

Claire's research on the funding economics of aged care, including her earlier work on the economics of caring and population ageing in New Zealand, gives policymakers and sector leaders an evidence base for the difficult conversations about who should pay for what in an ageing society. Her work for the Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group and her engagement with the Pensions and Intergenerational Equity Hub connect aged care to the broader fiscal and intergenerational policy challenges that New Zealand's government must navigate.

50. Samantha Edmonds: Note on this entry

The fiftieth slot on this list is taken by a leader whose work spans both the advocacy and innovation dimensions of aged care. Given Samantha Edmonds has already been profiled at entry 5, this position goes to the following leader.

50. Byron Cannon

Byron Cannon is CEO of LDK Seniors' Living, the privately backed aged care provider whose Village Membership model has attracted significant sector attention for its innovation in how care is funded and delivered. LDK's model, founded by private aged care veteran Paul Browne and developed into scale under Byron's leadership, asks residents to pay an upfront membership rather than a deferred management fee, so that the operator can invest in care, hospitality, and staffing quality from day one rather than waiting for an exit event to generate revenue. Anglicare's decision to take a 50 percent stake in LDK and adopt the Village Membership model in its own villages is perhaps the strongest external validation that this model is more than a boutique experiment.

Byron's leadership of LDK at a moment when private aged care is attracting increasing investment as a response to the public funding constraints on not-for-profit and government providers makes him an important voice on how private capital can be aligned with genuine care quality outcomes. His engagement in sector conversations about what 'high-quality aged care' means in practice, including how LDK's communities serve residents with high acuity needs in village settings rather than clinical facilities, reflects an approach to care design that the broader sector could learn from.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

A number of leaders were seriously considered for this list and deserve acknowledgement. Brene Brown, Adam Grant, and Simon Sinek appear on almost every leadership list, and their contributions to leadership and human behaviour thinking are widely recognised. We chose to give that space to leaders who equally deserve to be widely known within the specific context of aged care in Australia and New Zealand, rather than repeat names you have likely already encountered many times in other contexts.

Within the sector, Sean Bilton, Managing Director and CEO of Estia Health, Australia's largest listed residential aged care provider by number of homes, was a strong contender given Estia's market presence and Sean's public engagement on reform. Olivier Chretien's Bolton Clarke colleague Russell Bricknell was considered for a second slot given the quality of his LinkedIn commentary but the single-entry rule applies. Professor Henry Brodaty AO, one of Australia's most eminent dementia researchers at UNSW, was very close to the final cut but his most visible public contributions have been through international research forums rather than the ANZ sector conversation specifically addressed by this directory. Katherine Ravenswood's AUT colleague in the Care/Work Research Group, whose work on home care worker conditions is equally rigorous, was displaced by the need to include voices from the full range of sector domains.

The NZ side of this list was the most difficult to populate given the smaller sector scale and the fewer public-facing commentators, and several New Zealand provider CEOs who are doing excellent work in their organisations have not yet developed the public thought leadership presence that would justify inclusion.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Engaging with Aged Care Thought Leadership

Following aged care thought leaders on LinkedIn or at conferences without contextualising their perspective is one of the most common mistakes sector professionals make. Every voice on this list has a particular vantage point shaped by their role: a peak body CEO sees the sector differently from a clinical researcher, an advocacy director differently from an innovation entrepreneur, a residential care provider differently from a home care operator. Understanding whose perspective you are reading, and what interests it may reflect, is the beginning of sophisticated sector literacy.

Treating thought leadership as a substitute for organisational evidence is another common error. The ideas generated by the leaders on this list, however compelling, need to be tested against the specific context of your organisation, your workforce, your community, and your financial position before being adopted as strategy. The best thought leaders in aged care are not prescribing universal solutions. They are expanding the space of what is possible and provoking the questions that strategic leaders need to ask.

Overlooking the consumer voice in the sector conversation is a persistent mistake that the Royal Commission itself identified as a systemic failure. The most important perspective on aged care is that of older people themselves, and the advocates who represent their interests often get less attention in sector media than the provider and technology voices who have more resources to invest in communication. The consumer advocates on this list, including COTA, OPAN, and Dementia Australia, deserve equal attention to the provider and innovation voices.

Assuming that digital transformation solves workforce problems is a mistake that several technology providers and some policy voices encourage. Technology can extend the reach of a skilled workforce, reduce administrative burden, and improve clinical monitoring. But it cannot replace the human presence, relational trust, and physical care that older people need and deserve. The leaders on this list who have thought most carefully about technology, including George Margelis, Rob Covino, and Jennene Buckley, are the ones who are most honest about both its potential and its limits.

Finally, treating aged care reform as an Australian problem and ignoring the New Zealand context, or vice versa, misses the comparative learning opportunity that the cross-Tasman relationship provides. The countries face similar demographic pressures, workforce challenges, and philosophical debates about consumer choice and government responsibility, but from different regulatory starting points and with different provider market structures. The New Zealand voices on this list deserve as much engagement from Australian sector leaders as the Australian voices do.

Implementation Guide: How to Engage with Aged Care Thought Leadership

The most practical way to engage with the thought leaders on this list is to follow them on LinkedIn, where the majority are actively publishing commentary, analysis, and responses to sector developments. LinkedIn is the primary professional communication platform for Australian aged care, and a curated follow list built from this directory will give you a richer and more current picture of the sector conversation than any publication or conference program can provide on its own.

The second step is to engage with the primary publications these leaders contribute to. Australian Ageing Agenda and Inside Ageing are the two most important sector-specific news sources for Australia. The Weekly SOURCE, published by DCM Group, provides the most in-depth coverage of the retirement living and home care investment dimensions. For New Zealand, RNZ's health and aged care coverage and the Aged Care Association's publications provide the most consistent commentary.

Pearls and Irritations, John Menadue's public policy journal, is the best non-sector source for rigorous aged care policy commentary.

Third, attend the sector's flagship conferences. Ageing Australia's National Conference, held annually in November and coming to Sydney in November 2026, is the broadest and most representative gathering of the sector, covering workforce, governance, reform, innovation, and everything in between. ITAC, the innovation and technology conference, brings together the technology and digital transformation voices. The Leaders Summit focuses on retirement living and aged care strategy at the CEO and board level.

Attending even one of these events annually will significantly deepen your understanding of where the sector conversation is heading.

Fourth, engage with the research. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare publishes regular data on aged care workforce, access, and quality that grounds the sector conversation in evidence. KPMG's annual aged care market analysis provides the most comprehensive financial and market intelligence available publicly. The Australasian Journal on Ageing is the primary peer-reviewed outlet for regional research on gerontology and aged care.

The Australian Dementia Research Forum, held annually, brings together the research and care communities in ways that translate research findings into sector practice.

If your organisation needs support building the leadership culture and team effectiveness that allows your people to do their best work in aged care, Jonno White works with aged care leadership teams across Australia and internationally. As a bestselling author and Certified Working Genius Facilitator with experience across the full spectrum of health and human services organisations, he brings a leadership development perspective that complements the sector expertise of the thought leaders on this list. To explore how Jonno might support your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than organisations expect, and Jonno works equally effectively virtually and in person.

Frequently Asked Questions

How was this list compiled?

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria: documented contribution to aged care in Australia or New Zealand, active engagement in the field in 2025 and 2026, and genuine current contribution to the sector conversation. The list draws from across the full aged care sector, including residential care, home care, dementia care, technology, consumer advocacy, clinical research, and cross-Tasman policy. Geographic and disciplinary diversity were both considered, and the list was designed to surface voices that deserve to be far better known rather than to repeat the same handful of names that appear on every list about this sector.

Who are the most influential thought leaders in Australian aged care right now?

That depends on what dimension of aged care you are most engaged with. For peak body and policy leadership, Tom Symondson at Ageing Australia and Patricia Sparrow at COTA Australia are the most consistently visible voices. For consumer advocacy, Craig Gear at OPAN and Samantha Edmonds are doing the most rigorous systemic work. For research, Professor Kathy Eagar and Professor Joseph Ibrahim have the most direct influence on policy through their evidence base.

For innovation, Rob Covino, George Margelis, and Jennene Buckley are the most practically grounded voices on digital transformation.

Are there aged care thought leaders in New Zealand on this list?

Yes. The list includes Tracey Martin, Chief Executive of the Aged Care Association of New Zealand; David Cunliffe, Chair of the Aged Care Ministerial Advisory Group; Katherine Ravenswood, whose research on care workforce at AUT informs workforce policy; Joanna Hikaka, whose work on culturally appropriate care design for Maori older people is nationally important; and Dr Claire Dale, whose research on the economics of aged care in New Zealand is essential reading for anyone involved in the country's reform debate.

Can I hire someone to facilitate aged care leadership workshops or team development?

Yes. The thought leaders on this list are sector experts and researchers. For leadership workshops, team development, executive offsites, Working Genius facilitation, or DISC communication workshops for aged care organisations, Jonno White works with health and aged care leadership teams across Australia and internationally. His programs build the communication, culture, and team effectiveness foundations that allow aged care organisations to deliver on their mission.

Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss what your team needs.

What is the Aged Care Act 2024 and why does it matter?

The Aged Care Act 2024 is the most significant legislative reform to Australian aged care since the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. It commenced on 1 November 2025, replacing the Aged Care Act 1997. The new Act places a legally enforceable Statement of Rights at the centre of the system, introduces strengthened Quality Standards, expands the regulatory powers of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, and establishes personal liability for responsible persons at aged care organisations. It also reformed funding for residential care through the AN-ACC classification and restructured home care through the Support at Home program.

What are the biggest challenges facing aged care leadership in Australia and New Zealand right now?

The three most consistently cited challenges across the voices on this list are workforce sustainability, funding adequacy, and reform implementation complexity. The workforce challenge encompasses both absolute shortage of qualified staff, particularly registered nurses, and the conditions and pay rates that make aged care employment less attractive than hospital and other health settings. Funding adequacy is debated differently by providers and consumer advocates, but both agree that the current level of government investment is not sufficient to deliver the care quality that the new legislative framework demands. Implementation complexity arises from the pace and scope of simultaneous regulatory changes that providers are being asked to absorb while continuing to deliver care.

Final Thoughts

The 50 people on this list represent the full breadth of what aged care thought leadership looks like in 2026. They span peak body executives and academic researchers, consumer advocates and digital innovators, home care pioneers and residential care CEOs, policy architects and frontline clinical leaders. What they share is a commitment to doing the hard work of making the aged care system better, not just for the organisations they lead or the ideas they champion, but for the older people at the centre of everything the sector is supposed to be about.

The transformation of aged care in Australia and New Zealand is still very much in progress. The Aged Care Act 2024 has only just commenced. The Support at Home program is in its first year. New Zealand's Ministerial Advisory Group is still writing its report.

The technology that could extend care capacity has barely begun to be adopted at scale. The workforce challenges that have been building for decades will take years of sustained investment to address. The voices on this list are the people navigating all of that, week by week, and making it their life's work to ensure that older Australians and New Zealanders are better cared for than they have been.

For organisations that want to build the leadership culture, communication quality, and team effectiveness that allows aged care professionals to do their best work, the thought leaders on this list provide the ideas, evidence, and inspiration. For the practical facilitation, team development, and leadership support that turns those ideas into organisational capability, book Jonno White for your next leadership day, executive offsite, or Working Genius facilitation. Email jonno@consultclarity.org. Whether you are based in Australia, New Zealand, or further afield, Jonno works globally and finds that international travel is far more affordable than most organisations expect.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements.

Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read

For more on the residential aged care dimension of this topic, including detailed profiles of the provider executives and policy architects specifically shaping residential care in Australia and New Zealand, check out my blog post '35 Best Thought Leaders in Residential Aged Care (2026)' at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-residential-aged-care.

That directory profiles 35 of the most influential thought leaders in residential aged care specifically, covering the provider CEOs, policy architects, consumer advocates, researchers, clinicians, innovation leaders, and cross-Tasman figures whose work is most directly relevant to the residential care setting. It includes detailed context on the Aged Care Act 2024, the AN-ACC funding transition, and the New Zealand reform landscape that complements the broader sector picture presented in this directory.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/thought-leaders-residential-aged-care