Optometry Australia will head into 2025 with a refreshed Board following the appointment in late 2025 of Theo Charalambous as President, Shuva Bose as Vice President, and Ramy Aziz as Treasurer. Elise Pocknee-Clem joins the national Board as a new director. 

Mr Charalambous succeeds Dr Margaret Lam, who served as President of the Board since 2022.

As he stepped into the role, Mr Charalambous praised the leadership and contributions of Dr Lam, who had guided “the profession through significant milestones".

As President, he said he was “particularly looking forward to helping drive Optometry Australia’s new advocacy campaign to reinstate twoyearly eye exams, and the upcoming 2025 myopia awareness campaign, both of which will have lasting impacts on eye health and the optometry profession in Australia.”

Mr Charalambous joined the national Board in 2021. A 2001 Bachelor of Optometry graduate from the University of Melbourne, he also holds a Senior Executive MBA from the Melbourne Business School and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) course in 2022.

He entered the optometry profession in 2002 working in practices in the Berwick and Pakenham areas in Melbourne, before opening his own independent practice ModernEyes in 2008. Mr Charalambous now owns and works across a number of OPSM practices across Melbourne and an independent practice in Hastings, Victoria.