Barry Oliver, President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific and a Vice-President of the worldwide General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, has served the church as a pastor, evangelist, college lecturer and administrator. He is married to Julie, a teacher, and they have three sons. He began serving as the church's president in 2008, after 10 years as its General Secretary.

Dr Oliver grew up in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia. He attended Avondale College, the church's tertiary institution in Australia, completing a Bachelor's degree in theology. In 1973, the Olivers accepted a call to ministry in south-east Queensland. They cared for churches in Maryborough and Hervey Bay, in southern Brisbane and on the Darling Downs over the next five years. Dr Oliver was ordained in 1976.

The church appointed Dr Oliver to serve as district supervisor, evangelist and university chaplain for the Port Moresby district of Papua New Guinea at the end of 1978. He transferred to Rabaul as president of the church's New Britain New Ireland Mission after just one year in Port Moresby. Dr Oliver was subsequently invited to join the Faculty of Theology at Avondale College five years later and while lecturing there, completed a Master's degree in religion.

The Oliver family moved to Andrews University in Michigan, USA, at the end of 1985. There he completed a PhD in Christian ministry and mission with a focus on Adventist organisational structure. He then returned to Avondale for nine years to teach the practice of ministry and world mission in the Faculty of Theology. While lecturing there, he developed a comprehensive field-based training program for trainee ministers, integrating theory with practice in ministry and pioneered a form of church-based evangelistic training that helped students prepare hundreds of people for baptism.

At the end of 1997, Dr Oliver received an invitation to serve as General Secretary for the church in the South Pacifc. During his time as General Secretary, he played a senior role in initiating reforms that have reduced administrative positions, releasing financial and human resources to better fulfil the mission of the church. He has also been significantly involved in implementing a major legal restructuring of church entities including the Sanitarium Health Food Company, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, Adventist Media, Avondale College and Sydney Adventist Hospital.

He was nominated to be the president of the Adventist Church in the South Pacific at the end of 2007. He took up his responsibilities as president on January 11, 2008. 

Dr Oliver continues to be active in research and writing. Up to the present, he has approximately 100 significant publications in print.

Dr Oliver's personal vision for the church is that we all will know, experience and share our hope in Jesus Christ.