Joe Duncan
Duncan Foundation Chair
Investor, Director and Shareholder
Joe is an active investor across a range of industries and sectors, including Property Development, Finance, Technology (Fintech and Blockchain) and Agriculture. He has been involved in a number of privately held companies in New Zealand and Australia which include companies such as Ihug, e-Solutions, The Better Drinks Company, Focus Capital, Alleasing, RentPlus and Equipment Leasing and Finance. All of these have been successfully sold to listed entities or Private Equity organisations.
Joe is a Trustee for the Sir Thomas and Lady Duncan Trust, a significant donor to neuromuscular disorders. He, along with his fellow Trustee’s and Gordon, founded the Duncan Foundation, a national support service for people living with neuromuscular conditions and the health professionals who treat and support them. Duncan Foundation provides access to expert assessment and clinical practitioners who understand the management of selected neuro muscular conditions, as well as ongoing support for the person and their families.
Previously, Joe was CEO, Director and Shareholder of Leasing and Finance Limited. This business trades under the Speirs Finance & Yoogo Leasing brands. He spent eight years working in the financial markets for J.P Morgan where his roles and responsibilities included heading up the Interest Rate Derivatives Risk Management Desk in Tokyo as a Vice President. Joe holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Management, Majoring in Economics.
Tim Edmonds
Trustee
Tim worked for 10 years in Universities in NZ and the UK. His responsibilities included developing and securing funding for large-scale European partnership projects.
In recent years, Tim has worked for New Zealand’s leading child health research charity, Cure Kids, as their Research and innovation Director. He is responsible for overseeing a research funding portfolio spanning more than 50 active projects, worth close to $10m. Tim works with many of the country’s leading researchers and clinicians to identify collaborative opportunities for addressing priority child health challenges.
Tim is also the General Manager of Cure Kids in Fiji, which has a focus on delivering new research-based child health programmes across the Fiji Islands in partnership with the Fiji Ministry of Health and a variety of government and corporate funding partners.
Sally Paterson
Trustee
Sally Paterson is an experienced communications professional with a background in public relations for not-for-profit and corporate clients. She has worked in the not-for profit sector for the past six years providing strategic communications advice and hands-on media relations, mostly recently with the Sir Peter Blake Trust. During her time at the Sir Peter Blake Trust she worked with New Zealand leaders, scientists, conservationists and also led the team as interim Chief Executive.
She consulted to the highly regarded PR company Sherson Willis and spent three years working closely with child health funder, Cure Kids and ran the media campaign for the 2013 and 2014 Red Nose Days. Also managed complex relationships and media relationships with NZ Rugby and the All Blacks, Cure Kids Professorial Chairs, Universities, key funders and families of Cure Kids ambassadors.
Sally has also worked in other public relations consultancies with key NZ companies and organisations and individuals including: Restaurant Brands, Vodafone, Mitre 10, Bach Care, ADHB and local and international authors.
Letticia Mincham
Chief Executive
Letticia has spent the last 15 years working and volunteering in the health & disability sector, most recently as Finance & Development Manager for Mobility Dogs and General Manager of the Epilepsy Foundation. Letticia has business management experience as a company director and as a consultant working with various community and disability-focused organisations such as residential service providers, disability support services, community mental health and women’s health services.
Letticia is passionate about delivering person-centred services and ensuring all New Zealanders have access to the information and relevant services they need.
Julie Rope
Clinical Director Duncan Foundation
NZRP, BPHTY Otago, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Department of Medicine, University of Auckland
Julie has a passion for working with the neurological patient population, ensuring they have access to assessment and support wherever they live in New Zealand, and sharing knowledge with other professionals about neurological condition management.
For Julie this has included passing competencies to become a LSVT BIG therapist and New Zealand’s first PWR!Moves® Certified Therapist https://www.pwr4life.org/moves/ providing evidence based treatment to Parkinson’s patients. She has also become certified Poi instructor under the guidance of Dr. Kate Riegle van West.
Julie has also completed competency examinations to provide Advanced Vestibular Rehabilitation assessment and treatment and is currently completing her Master of Philosophy at AUT, as a clinically focused Masters. Her study aims to find out if passing weak electric currents to the cerebellum, a part of the brain at the back of the head, while doing an exercise programme improves the outcomes of the exercise programme for people with Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 1 (SCA1).
On behalf of the Duncan Foundation, Julie has embarked on developing the expert skills to assess and manage people affected by Polio and the management of the late effects of living with Polio disability and facilitating access to neurological rehabilitation options to those with Recently Diagnosed Parkinson’s, Dystonia, Friedreich’s Ataxia and Spinocerebellar Ataxia. Julie is also a part of the Neurogenetics Research Clinic research team, working alongside New Zealand’s leading neuromuscular clinical team at the University of Auckland and Auckland City Hospital.
Julie has extensive experience within acute neurosurgical and neuro-medical units, stroke rehabilitation units and community teams with both young and elderly patient groups, neuro-intensive care units, a brain injury assessment unit for the minimally conscious, neuro-oncology and infectious diseases, vestibular rehabilitation clinic, neuro hydrotherapy, spinal cord injury rehabilitation, Parkinson’s and dystonia management.
Julie leads the expert team of Duncan Foundation-accredited, neuromuscular condition-specific clinicians across New Zealand.
