Meet the team

Yvonne Clarke

Managing Director

Yvonne Clarke is the founder and Managing Director of Pathways Community Interest Company. Yvonne has gained a national reputation for business innovation and commitment to improving community outcomes, gaining an MBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List.

Yvonne has led Pathways to research and implement methodologies to improve employment outcomes for people in work who are off sick, allowing them to return to work quicker than without interventions. These studies have been used to inform Government thinking, interventions such as the national Fit for Work Service, and the Greater Manchester Working Well Early Help Services. She has also led Pathways to become a member of the Health and Wellbeing Group, enabling Pathways to become a voluntary sector strategic partner to the NHS. With Yvonne’s leadership, Pathways has developed a model of social prescribing which was identified as a model of international best practice in 2018. Similarly the evidence base from Pathways HEALTHY Manchester supporting people with health conditions to move into work, has been identified as a model of best practice within Greater Manchester.

Yvonne has been on a number of committees and is presently a member of the national MSK at Work Network.

Mark Franklin

Director Of Operations

Mark is an experienced designer of grass root provisions that are engineered to support people with health conditions to remain engaged in or to move closer to employment. Mark is a vastly experienced Operations and Project Manager who over the past 12 years has worked collaboratively with colleagues and partners to design 7 prototype services and programmes of which have bought innovation to traditional delivery models aligned to health and employment. These services and programmes have brought wider benefits both from fiscal and social returns across public, private and third sector, 5 of which are now mainstream provisions that are delivered at a local or regional level across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

With an extensive background in health, Mark is incredibly passionate about reducing inequalities, and in particular health inequalities.

Alex Potts

People and Development Operations Manager

Alex is an Operations Manager focusing on Innovation and People Development. She's currently leading on establishing Pathways as an accredited training centre for personalised care aligned with the Personalised Care Institute’s curriculum. The training will support health and care professionals to gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to provide personalised care in line with the NHS's long-term plan.

Alex joined the Pathways family in 2009 following 15 years at ICI plc within HR roles and a career break. She's found the transition to working alongside dynamic and committed teams within an innovative and compassionate social enterprise hugely energising and rewarding.

With Pathways recently having been accredited with the Gold Investors in People Award, Alex and the team now have their sights firmly fixed on achieving the Platinum award! Alex appreciates that putting people, both clients and staff, at the heart of all Pathways does creates a very special place to work.

Janette Harradine

Operations Manager

Janette comes to Pathways from a near 15-year career in the Welfare to Work sector, where she has undertaken a range of roles delivering and managing contracts for DWP. More recently Janette has worked within the Health sector, delivering innovative resourcing solutions to Nursing Homes and the NHS Trusts in the North West area.

Janette has grown up in Cheshire and belongs to a close community. Over recent months she has become an avid walker and appreciates the local beauties on her door.

Josh Matthews

Operations Manager Personalised Care Training Academy

Josh leads the development of personalised care training programmes within Pathways CIC and plays a central role in embedding personalised care approaches into practice. He brings a strong background in physical activity, behaviour change and service leadership across health and wellbeing settings.

Holding a BSc in Physical Activity and Health and qualified as a Level 3 Exercise Referral Specialist, Josh has led the design, delivery and evaluation of exercise referral and work and health services. He has managed multidisciplinary clinical teams supporting people with health conditions to move closer to employment. As Operations Manager for the Personalised Care Training Academy, Josh ensures training is practical, high quality and grounded in real-world delivery experience.

Zariah Bailey

Working Well Work and Health Programme Service Lead and Health Educator

Zariah is an experienced health and wellbeing coach with a background in helping people to move closer to work and/or remain in work whilst living with a health condition.

“I have worked on a number of programmes that have supported service users to understand the relationship between health, work and wellbeing, enabling them to understand how their health conditions can impact on work status but how with effective management, health state and employment can improve their quality of life and opportunities”.

Melanie Shirley

HR Manager

Melanie is our HR Lead, focussing on HR strategy, Innovation, People Development and management of our HR process across the business, ensuring that all we do is compliant with Employment law and in line with our values and strategy as a business. She is creative, forward thinking and agile using her skills to create a HR pathway that supports the business and its people to deliver excellence whilst being engaged, highly performing individuals who invest in themselves and in turn support business growth.

Melanie joined the Pathways family in 2009. She is a HR Professional with over 20 years experience within HR having spent much of her career at Jaguar Land Rover, working within many HR functions giving her a broad experience of business. Melanie is also an experienced Project Manager and NLP practitioner. She joined the Pathways family as a Case Manager, using her HR and coaching skills to support both unemployed and employed clients with challenges they faced both within and outside of work to return to and sustain their employment. Her passion, compassion for others, innovative mindset align Melanie with our Pathways values.