Pathway Fund Announces First Non-Executive Directors
Pathway’s new Non-Executive Directors, from left to right: Julian Blake; Tara Collier; Iqbal Wahhab OBE; Sarah Santhosham; and Joel Buchanan Davis.
Pathway Fund is delighted to be able to announce today that it's entered an exciting new phase of growth, as its momentum builds - and its reach expands.
As part of our ambitions for the coming year and for the scaling of the project, we’re delighted to announce the appointment of our fantastic new Non-Executive Directors (NEDs).
Our new NEDs are:
Julian Blake – a lawyer at the leading public law firm, Stone King LLP, with extensive experience in the impact investing and social enterprise space;
Tara Sabre Collier – an impact investor, advisor and expert with UK and international expertise, currently the Practice Lead for Climate and Private Sector Engagement at Chemonics UK;
Iqbal Wahhab OBE – a restaurant entrepreneur, founder of the Cinnamon Club, government adviser, former Chair of the Department for Work and Pensions' Ethnic Minority Advisory Group, and business expert;
Sarah Santhosham – Head of Engagement & Sustainable Investment for The Scott Trust Endowment, and formerly a civil servant at the Treasury and Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit, and community organiser; and
Joel Buchanan Davis – a social entrepreneur in the UK, CEO of the Quintessentially Foundation, and Trustee of The Rank Foundation.
These NEDs bring with them a fantastic collective portfolio of experiences and expertise, which will be essential in helping to guide Pathway, as it goes from strength to strength, over the coming months and years. Their respective knowledge of the policy, investing, media, legal, and business landscapes and worlds, will be essential in ensuring that Pathway maximises its impact where it’s needed most – in the communities that it empowers.
This of course comes after the recent appointment of our first Chair – Lord Dr Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE – an eminent racial justice campaigner and Crossbench member of the House of Lords.
The Chair and the NEDs will be working together to help take Pathway into new spaces and places, building upon the £3.5 million it has already raised – and begun to deploy – as part of its work to catalyse social investment opportunities for Black and Ethnically Minoritised communities. The co-founders, Bonnie Chiu, Kunle Olulode, and Stephen Bediako, will also be joining the Board in Non-Executive capacity over the coming months.
As part of this transition, our Project Director, Dilys Winterkorn, will be leaving her current role in October 2024. We thank her for the brilliant contributions that she’s made to the project. Since 2022 Dilys has been driving and building the team and has overseen the deployment of capital to Black and Ethnically Minoritised social enterprises, across the UK, and crucially building Pathway from an incubated initiative to an independent organisation. We look forward to a close relationship with her, as part of our next chapter, too.
We will spend time with the new Board to decide the best way to recruit for new leadership, but in the meantime, Pathway will be led by the existing leadership team, comprised by the co-founders, Chief Investment Officer Christine Chang and fractional Chief Operating Officer, James Endean.
Crucially, we’d like to thank Dilys once again for her immense contribution to Pathway Fund. Her support has been vital in enabling the Fund to come into being, attract such support, and fundamentally, grow, to the size it is now.
If anyone has any questions or thoughts on this, then please don’t hesitate to reach us via the co-founders’ personal emails, or by emailing impact@pathwayfund.org.uk.
We’re very much looking forward to this next stage in our journey – and can’t wait to embark on it, with our fantastic new NEDs, and our fantastic partners.