Biography

Gopi Sara is the CEO and co-founder of OneMRI, one of Australia’s fastest-growing healthcare startups and the nation’s largest provider of full-body MRI scans. OneMRI’s mission is to make advanced imaging more accessible to everyday Australians, enabling earlier detection of cancer and chronic disease through cutting-edge technology and a patient-first experience. Backed by leading venture firms including OIF, TEN13, Salus and Antler, OneMRI is redefining how preventive health is delivered at scale.

Gopi’s journey began when he arrived in Australia in 2000 as a refugee from Sri Lanka. Engineering became his pathway to citizenship, but after a brief stint in the field he moved into business consulting, eventually spending eight years at McKinsey. 

It was there he was first exposed to startups and venture capital, running problem-solving labs for founders, experimenting with his own ideas, and discovering the thrill of early-stage company building. He began angel investing in 2018 and has since built a portfolio of ~30 companies across B2B SaaS, AI, fintech, food tech and marketplaces. After early exploration across categories, Gopi honed his strategy around B2B SaaS, particularly at the intersection of AI, marketing, automation and compliance, where he could meaningfully support founders with go-to-market thinking and operating horsepower. His investment philosophy centres on founder quality above all else: backing exceptional, missionary individuals solving painful, urgent problems.

One of Gopi’s earliest investments was OfferFit, then just two founders with a pitch deck. Captivated by their conviction and the scale of the problem they were solving, he invested, supported their first Australian customer introduction, and later joined the company full-time. OfferFit was acquired by Braze in 2025. 

What is the best thing about your job?

The best part of my job is that I get to assemble my own team. I am incredibly fortunate that every day I get to work alongside people I genuinely care about, including my sister and people who have since become some of my closest friends. Building OneMRI has given me the rare opportunity to create the kind of culture I have always wanted to work in: one built on trust, humility, kindness and a shared sense of purpose.

Being able to choose the people you go on the journey with, and then build an environment where everyone can grow, feel supported, and do the best work of their lives, is something I never take for granted. It is easily the most fulfilling part of what I do.

What is the most challenging project/problem you have worked on either as an external consultant or an internal strategist?

The most challenging project I have ever worked on is taking OneMRI from an idea to a fully functioning business with real customers, employees and revenue. Unlike consulting where you solve a defined problem, building OneMRI meant waking up every day and thinking about every part of the business at once: operations, marketing, partnerships, clinical workflows and customer experience. 

In just 12 months, we went from a single partner clinic to more than 45 across Australia. We now have tens of thousands of people enquiring about our service each month, and we are growing more than 20 percent month on month. Scaling that quickly while maintaining quality, service and culture has been incredibly rewarding, but also by far the hardest thing I have done in my career.

What makes it challenging is that there is no playbook. You are constantly making decisions with imperfect information, solving problems you have never seen before, and balancing huge ambition with the responsibility of people putting their trust in you. But that challenge is also what makes the journey meaningful.

What advice would you give someone transitioning from a consulting firm to a role in industry?

My biggest advice for anyone moving from consulting into industry is simple: follow people. Find an exceptional person or an exceptional group of people and join them to do great things.

In consulting, you are trained to analyse problems, build frameworks and optimise decisions. But in industry, especially in fast-growing companies, the real differentiator is the people you choose to surround yourself with. Great leaders and great teams will accelerate your learning curve, give you opportunities you would never get otherwise and create an environment where you can stretch well beyond what a traditional role might allow.

When you join a team with high trust, humility and ambition, the work becomes energising rather than draining. You grow faster, you contribute more and you find yourself doing the best work of your career without even realising it.

So instead of obsessing about the title, the industry or the perfect role, focus on the humans. Find people who inspire you, who challenge you and who are building something meaningful. If you follow the right people, the rest tends to take care of itself.

Who has influenced your career the most and why?

The person who has influenced my career the most is my dad. He had an extraordinary work ethic, and it shaped the way I think about opportunity, responsibility and what it means to work hard. When I was young, his friends used to tell me stories about how my dad would take public transport for an hour and then walk 45 minutes in the Saudi Arabian heat just to get to work. And then he would do the same journey home. He did 6 days a week for 19 years.

He never complained. He never had the luxury of choosing what he wanted to do. He simply did what was necessary to put food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. That level of sacrifice and discipline stays with you.

Growing up with that example made me realise how fortunate I am to be in a position where I can choose my path. I don’t have to work out of necessity; I get to work out of purpose. And because of that, I’ve always tried to make sure that whatever I pursue is meaningful, satisfying and worthy of the opportunities I’ve been given. My dad taught me that work can be hard, but it should never be wasted.

What is the favourite piece of advice you have received and from whom?

My favourite piece of advice came from a 2011 Chrysler ad. The message has stuck with me ever since:

“Some people say that good things come to those who wait.
Truth is, good things come to those who work.
Who work later. Who work harder. Who are willing to go further than anyone else to get them.
If you’re waiting for good things to come to you… you’ll be waiting for a pretty long time.”

It sounds unconventional to take life advice from an ad, but that mindset has shaped how I approach my career. It’s a reminder that nothing meaningful happens by accident. You have to outwork, outlearn and outpersist everyone else.

Whenever I’m facing a challenge or a moment of doubt, I come back to that line. It centres me. It reminds me that the only things worth having are the things you’re willing to grind for.

Please describe the most impactful leader you've worked under and what specific traits made them exceptional.

The most impactful leaders I have worked under are George Khachatryan at OfferFit and Jon Garcia from my time at McKinsey. It is impossible to choose between them because they both exemplified the same rare and exceptional qualities.

What stood out most was their sheer willingness to carry the entire organisation on their shoulders. They led from the front, not through authority, but through an unmatched level of personal responsibility and commitment. Both George and Jon could articulate a vision so clearly and so inspiringly that you felt compelled to move heaven and earth to help deliver it. Their belief in the mission made you believe in it even more.

They also had an ability to galvanise people, to make every person feel like they had a crucial role in something much bigger than themselves. Working under leaders like that changes you. It pushes you to raise your standards, stretch beyond what you thought you were capable of, and give everything you have to the mission.

I genuinely would have sacrificed myself for both of them because they created environments where you trusted the mission, trusted the team and trusted the leadership completely. It was truly inspiring to work for them, and those experiences continue to shape the kind of leader I aspire to be today.

Can you share an example of your best hiring decision and what qualities or indicators made that person stand out during your selection process.

One of the best hiring decisions I have made at OneMRI came after we completely overhauled our hiring process. Around eight months ago, we realised we needed to move away from hiring based on "vibe" and instead adopt a disciplined, fact-based approach. So we built a rigorous process that gives us a well-rounded view of every candidate and removes as much bias as possible.

Our process now includes, in order: a 45-minute founder interview, a 45-minute interview with the hiring manager, a 45-minute technical interview with an independent external stakeholder, a take-home assignment, a 45-minute follow-up conversation with the hiring manager and a minimum of two reference checks. At the end of all this, our rule is simple: the decision must be a hell yes. Anything short of that is a pass.

The best hiring decision emerged directly from this new structure. What made this person stand out was their consistent excellence across every stage. Their assignment showed deep problem-solving ability, their technical interview confirmed competence and their references validated their work ethic and integrity. Most importantly, they demonstrated a clear ability to positively contribute to our culture. We do not hire for culture fit because we know our culture will always evolve. Instead, we look for people who will elevate it, strengthen it and add something new to it.

This hire has done exactly that. They have raised the bar for the team and helped shape the culture we are building at OneMRI.

As a child what did you want to be when you were older?

I came to Australia as a refugee when I was 10 years old. For almost eight years we lived with very little, focused on surviving day to day and trying to build a new life from scratch. Because of that, my childhood didn’t revolve around dreaming of a particular career or profession.

All I wanted, when I was older, was to be Australian.

For me, becoming Australian represented stability, opportunity and the chance to build a future that wasn’t defined by fear or uncertainty. It meant belonging. It meant safety. It meant having choices. That was the dream.

Looking back now, that desire shaped a lot of who I became. It made me deeply grateful for every opportunity I’ve had, and it pushed me to pursue work that feels meaningful and worthy of the sacrifice my parents made. In many ways, achieving that childhood dream became the foundation for everything else that followed.

Who is your personal or business hero/heroine and what quality do you most admire in them?

I really look up to founder CEOs who have stood the test of time – people like Graham “Skroo” Turner (Flight Centre), Jensen Huang (NVIDA), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta). What I admire most about them is their ability to build and grow their companies through multiple S-curves.

Most companies struggle to survive one major transition. These leaders have navigated several. They have reinvented their businesses again and again, stayed deeply connected to their customers, and continued to scale even as the world around them changed dramatically. That level of endurance, clarity of vision and willingness to continuously evolve is incredibly rare.

To me, that is the true mark of great leadership: not just creating something successful, but having the resilience, curiosity and adaptability to keep building through every stage of the journey.

Who would you like sitting next to you at a dinner party and why?

I would choose to sit next to anyone from the OneMRI team. I genuinely believe we have assembled one of the best teams in Australia. These are people who are deeply committed to the mission, who look after each other and who show up every day with humility, drive and aligned values.

What makes them special is not just their talent, but the way they carry themselves. They work hard, they care deeply and they bring an energy that makes even the toughest days enjoyable. Sharing a dinner table with people like that – people who inspire you, make you laugh and push you to be better – is something I never take for granted.

If you want great conversation, genuine connection and a sense of purpose, you can’t ask for better company than the team at OneMRI.

What is your favourite quote or motto?

My favourite motto is: “If we are going to panic, let’s panic early”

For me, it captures a simple but powerful truth. If something feels off, the worst thing you can do is wait. Early “panic” is about confronting reality quickly, acting decisively and giving yourself maximum time to solve the issue. In startups especially, speed and honesty are everything.