Huntington’s Australia

Following the recent announcement about State Association memberships agreeing to proceed with a national merger, Huntington’s Australia (HA) has appointed a CEO to lead the new association.

Lenni Duffield, from Huntington’s WA, has been unanimously endorsed by the HA Board as the inaugural CEO of Huntington’s Australia. Lenni has held senior roles and provided business consulting services in health and community service sectors, has qualifications in business, management and leadership, community sector management and is currently in the process of completing her Master in Business Administration with the Australian Institute of Management, with whom she is an Associate Fellow.

“Lenni comes equipped with a range of skills, knowledge, qualifications, experience and personal attributes that make her a standout candidate. Her commitment to and passion for bettering the lives of people with and impacted by Huntington’s disease is unquestioned.” Says Chris Glasson, Chair HA.

“Fortunately for us, we have been able to see what Lenni can do in person over a good time-period, through her work as CEO in WA and thorough her Project Management work with the merger feasibility study and more latterly planning for the merger implementation. Her consistent, high-quality work and standards over an extended period give us great confidence that we have the right person to take the new organisation forward.” Chris continues.

Amongst all the other things that are happening, perhaps the most important piece of work is continuing with the long process of obtaining the NDIS registration. This will allow Huntington’s Australia to extend the NDIS support services currently offered in WA and NSW into all the other States. When planning was started for this mid last year, NDIS were working within their stated policy of taking up to 3 months to approve registrations. Recently that timeframe has blown out and this may jeopardise the expected 1 July date for merging, as Huntington’s Australia must be registered to continue to provide and grow the services. Whilst hopeful of meeting the 1 July merger date there has been discussions about Plan B, just in case, being a possible delay of up to 3 months. There were other options that might have enabled us to nonetheless merge on 1 July, but they were complicated and did not uphold our number one principle of putting our clients and community first. We will keep the community informed of the registration progress.

“This is my family, myself, my husband Adam and our gorgeous son Lawson. We are a busy little family juggling working life and living on a working property looking after a menagerie of farm animals, it’s always hectic with something to do, but we love it! We have fruit trees, grow veggies and run our own sheep. I’m fiercely passionate about the for-purpose sector and championing the roles and vital contributions that organisations such as the HD state associations and Huntington’s Australia contribute to communities and the government. When I’m not doing the work I love, I’m in the garden (a labour of love), or entertaining friends and family at home when not studying for my MBA or volunteering on local community projects. Also, when time permits, I love being creative!”