Meet the team: Simon Jennings

Simon has stepped into the Chief of Client Service Delivery at MSWA having extensive experience in healthcare with the National Health Service and in Silverchain. 

Life’s a bit of a whirlwind with four kids - two teenage girls (13 and 16) keeping me on my toes, plus a younger boy (7) and another girl (4) adding to the chaos. 

I was born in Hereford, England, but after 13 years in WA, I’m a fully committed, flag-waving Aussie - right down to passionately backing Australia in the Ashes (and thoroughly enjoying winding up my UK based family).

I’m a massive cricket and footy fan and, as an overseas blow-in, I’ve pledged my loyalty to the Dockers. These days, I don’t play organised sport myself, but I do keep busy coaching soccer and Auskick, so I’m still very much “in the game”. I have a bit of reputation in the office for bad dad jokes, so there you go, I am kicking goals again!

I also have a personal connection to Parkinson’s disease, which isn’t lived experience, but it has given me a tiny glimpse into the daily challenges of navigating the often frustrating and confusing system we have in Australia.

These frustrations make me double down on the journey. Almost 20 years ago, I got the chance to work in a purpose-based organisation. Having spent the first part of my career working in a variety of industries, I found myself 12 months into a contract with the National Health Service Institute for Innovation and Improvement in the UK, realising that I could apply all that I had learnt to date, but it could be used to benefit others.

At the time we were busy redesigning the broader National Health Service to remodel aspects of how they delivered care, something that stands me in good stead for the coming years at MSWA as we face the change to the NDIS and the need to innovate and optimise what we do.

Having caught the bug for working with purpose, once I got to WA, I looked for my happy space and found an opportunity to work on the opening of Fiona Stanley Hospital, which was quickly followed by the opening of Midland Hospital, Perth Children's Hospital and Berwick Hospital (in Victoria).

At the risk of becoming “that guy that opens hospitals,” I jumped over to working with Silverchain, another WA organisation with a rich history like MSWA, where I learnt lots about the challenges of getting things done in the community where the funding and environment is very different to hospitals! Wind forward to July 2023, the opportunity to join MSWA eventuated.

I’m also a Sessional Academic in the School of Public Health and a member of the Industry Course Advisory Board for the Health Sciences at Curtin University. As well as a Sessional Academic at Deakin University, teaching the Health Economics degree. 

I find that connecting industry to higher education and vice versa brings the academic rigour to the workplace and the industry reality to the classroom – it challenges me to stay on the top of things and allows me to speak to the next generation about the big challenges we see day to day. 

Couple all of this with my role at MSWA, you can see I like to keep busy. 

Much to my delight, I find myself now nearly two years into my journey with MSWA more excited than ever to be in my happy place, working with organisation that have passion and purpose. It’s something I have the privilege of seeing everyday across our Clients and employees. 

There is nowhere I would rather be.