SYNLAB UK & Ireland:

SYNLAB UK & Ireland Leadership Team

Mark Dollar

Mark Dollar
Chief Executive Officer

Mark joined SYNLAB UK and Ireland in March 2017 and is responsible for all operational activities across the company. Previously Mark served for 10 years in the Army with the Household Cavalry Regiment before leaving as a Major to enter into the Healthcare arena.

Mark was a founding member of the management team at Virgin Care where, for the last 10 years, he has undertaken roles that span the corporate and regional operations sphere and more latterly with the position of Chief Operating Officer.  He has a BSc (Hons) from Reading University in Land Management (Development).

Tom Evans

Tom Evans
Chief Financial Officer/Deputy CEO

Tom joined SYNLAB UK and Ireland in March 2018 and is responsible for all financial activities and governance in the business. He joined the company from Capita Plc where he held a number of senior Finance Director roles, most recently as Portfolio Finance Director for the Local Public Services division. ACA qualified with Deloitte, he previously worked as an Equity Analyst for JPMorgan and Gartmore Investment Management focussing on the European utilities market. Tom graduated from UCL with a BSc in Statistics.

Jennifer Aikman

Jennifer Aikman
Chief People Officer

Jennifer has been involved with iPP since it was established in 2010, joining in a full time capacity in April 2014. She is responsible for the strategic and operational development, management and planning of the HR and OD portfolio for the various iPP entity companies in the UK.

Jennifer began her career working in the hotel industry specialising in front office management before moving into operational and commercial management within the facilities management sector. After moving into HR in 2004 and working across a number of business streams from Healthcare, Defence to Business and Industry, Jennifer has extensive experience in managing large organisation change projects, complex industrial relations issues, and contract optimisation activity.

Jennifer is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and has an MA in Human Resources Management.

Selina Herlihy

Selina Herlihy
Chief Commercial Officer

Selina joined iPP in 2011, now heading the Commercial team responsible for all contracts and commercial arrangements with customers and suppliers, as well as overseeing legal matters for the company.

A Chartered Accountant and Admitted Solicitor, Selina has extensive commercial experience in both the public and private health sectors. Prior to joining iPP, Selina was Head of Commercial for the Department of Health’s NHS Contracting Division, managing deals with private sector entities.

Dr David James

Dr David James
Chief Medical Officer

Dr David James graduated from the Welsh National School of Medicine at University Hospital Cardiff where he also undertook his postgraduate training in Chemical Pathology.

David has recently retired after 22 years working as a Consultant Chemical Pathologist within the NHS in Somerset, where he was Clinical Director within SPS, to join SYNLAB in a full-time capacity as Chief Medical Officer. David is also the appointed Caldicott Guardian for SYNLAB UK & Ireland.

David has also had experience of working within Europe (Munich and Brussels) including as Vice-president of laboratory operations for a global clinical trials laboratory. He is a recent past chair of the Royal College of Pathologists Joint Working Group on Quality Assurance, and a current member and past chair of the National Quality Assessment Advisory Panel for Chemical Pathology.

Ian Baxter

Ian Baxter
Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Ian joined SYNLAB UK and Ireland in September 2022 to take on responsibility for information technology support, development and strategy.

Ian is also the appointed Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) for SYNLAB UK & Ireland and Synnovis.

Ian will be responsible for driving forward our integrated IT Strategy, which will support and underpin the #OneSYNLAB Initiative and our future success. As we develop as a business, our dependency on IT and data will become ever greater and Ian will play an important role in developing and enhancing this capability, as well as ensuring that we have a keen focus on IT security and resilience. Ian has a wealth of experience in the IT arena, spending the majority of his career across both financial services and healthcare, most recently as the Chief Information Security Officer for The Bank of Ireland and CIO for BUPA. 

Mark Pettler

Mark Pettler
Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Mark joined SYNLAB UK and Ireland in February 2024 and is responsible for driving service excellence and delivering transformation across the business units.

He is an experienced international supply chain and operations director with a proven track record of transforming business capability with a strong financial and customer focus. Mark has over 30 years’ experience in supply chain and operations across healthcare, FMCG, retail, wholesale and Third Party Logistics.

In more recent years, Mark has undertaken senior interim and consultancy roles for healthcare clients including McKesson, Sciensus and most recently Lloyds Pharmacy Clinical Homecare.

Mark is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and graduated from Imperial College London.

Dr Tracy Ellison

Dr Tracy Ellison
Managing Director (Synnovis)

Dr Tracy Ellison is the Managing Director for Synnovis. Tracy has more than 36 years of experience in pathology and laboratory medicine across the NHS and the commercial sectors. She joined SYNLAB as the transformation director for South East London in 2020 before being promoted to Chief Operating Officer for Synnovis in April 2021. As an international healthcare consultant and director, Tracy has successfully led teams globally through complex organisational change, creating sustainable structures and identifying metrics to measure improvements in performance.

Tracy has expertise in strategy creation and execution, as well as in delivering transformation to accelerate performance. Tracy is a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science (FIBMS), a Chartered Scientist (CSci), and a Six Sigma Black Belt.

Jamie Blackman

Jamie Blackman

Chief Finance Officer (Synnovis)

Jamie Blackman is the Chief Finance Officer for Synnovis. A highly commercial and strategic finance leader, he has a background of working for and with organisations that range from SMEs to blue-chip giants, including in mainland Europe and the USA. Jamie is experienced in privately owned, private equity and public companies in sectors such as digital services, technology outsourcing and consultancy, aerospace, healthcare and regulated businesses. He has significant expertise in leading teams through large, complex transformation programmes and in driving business improvement.

Latest SYNLAB UK & Ireland News
SYNLAB sets its Sights on Becoming the UK’s Leading Laboratory Diagnostics Organisation

Science for Life, Health and Wellbeing SYNLAB, the medical diagnostics provider, has set out its ambition to become the UK’s leading  laboratory diagnostics organisation by…

Read More (about 'SYNLAB sets its Sights on Becoming the UK’s Leading Laboratory Diagnostics Organisation')
Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement 2023

INTRODUCTION This is SYNLAB UK and Ireland’s (SYNLAB UK&I) Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement under Section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015…

Read More (about 'Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement 2023')
Exceptional talent honoured during SYNLAB awards programme

SYNLAB’s 2022 Excellence Awards recognised individuals and teams from across its UK & Ireland services, who display outstanding service in their roles. The awards ceremony…

Read More (about 'Exceptional talent honoured during SYNLAB awards programme')
SYNLAB Primed to Help Steer NHS’s COVID Bounce Back

SYNLAB is ready to play a key role in assisting the UK’s ongoing COVID recovery after securing membership of NHS England’s Increasing Capacity Framework (ICF)….

Read More (about 'SYNLAB Primed to Help Steer NHS’s COVID Bounce Back')
Landmark Day for Pathology Partnership with Launch of Synnovis Brand

A pathology partnership performing 32 million tests a year has been relaunched as ‘Synnovis’ – officially heralding the start of a new era for clinicians…

Read More (about 'Landmark Day for Pathology Partnership with Launch of Synnovis Brand')
Pathology laboratory becomes the first in the UK to support remote plate reading  

A pathology laboratory is leading the way in speeding up access to patient care and treatment after becoming the first in the UK to enable…

Read More (about 'Pathology laboratory becomes the first in the UK to support remote plate reading  ')
SYNLAB ESG Roadmap and Framework

Introduction SYNLAB UK&I is thrilled to publish its UK&I ESG Framework and Roadmap, which outlines out how we will achieve our ESG Goals. In it…

Read More (about 'SYNLAB ESG Roadmap and Framework')
GENDER Pay Gap Report 2020-21

A Message From Our CEO Whilst we are pleased at the improvement in our gender pay gap over the past four years, we know that…

Read More (about 'GENDER Pay Gap Report 2020-21')