David Lloyd

David Lloyd

Australia

Statement of motivation

Thank you for considering my candidacy for the role of Vice President (Elect) of the World Heart Federation.

I decided to nominate for this position because I align strongly in the mission of the Word Heart Federation and believe that I bring a mix of skills and experience that will be useful to the WHF, its Board, President and Executive, over the coming years.

The work we all do in our own jurisdictions to promote heart health and to support the fight against heart disease is significantly supported by the World Heart Federation. The collegiality and goodwill that enables senior people from the Foundations, the Cardiac Societies, patient support groups and other organisations is encouraging, and practically useful.

Beyond this, the international policy benchmarking the Federation undertakes – most recently supported by the launch of the World Heart Observatory – has provided us all with a resource which places our own national efforts in context. This is a significant step, and one that will have a large impact on our effectiveness as a global lobby group over the coming decades.

The international leadership that the Federation shows in regularly taking on issues such as climate change and air pollution provides us all with an opportunity to contribute beyond our own jurisdictions to the global fight against heart disease, something independent national entities alone could never achieve.

The World Heart Vision 2030 launched in Rio de Janeiro in October 2022 is an extraordinarily far-sighted document that rightly starts and ends with a focus on the social, financial, cultural and political determinants of health that underpin the inequities that give rise to the highest rates of cardiovascular disease around the world. I have seen the importance of this in my own country in our fight against rheumatic heart disease in remote Aboriginal communities. Inadequate access to health services and infrastructure is massively exacerbated by poor housing, poor sanitation, food insecurity, and low access to education and employment opportunities.

I have been deeply impressed with the way the World Heart Federation has fearlessly identified and addressed these issues, and believe that I can contribute to this work.

I have significant experience of corporate governance, with decades of continuous membership as a board member, Chair, Chair of Audit, and CEO. This gives me a high level of comfort with complex governance in professional, academic, public policy, research, and clinical environments. I have served on 19 boards in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, The United States and the United Kingdom over the past 30 years.

I know how to support a Chair, and understand well the boundaries between board and executive, as well as the tensions and opportunities that arise in the context of a membership organisation. My substantive role as CEO of a large Heart Foundation is supported by a very long experience of financial and human resource management, strategic planning and governance.

I would be honoured to serve as a member of the board of the World Heart Federation.