Pathway Fund Announces its Social Investment Committee
Pathway Fund is Delighted to Announce the Launch of its Social Investment Committee!
Pathway’s Social Investment Committee, from left to right: Asher Craig, Sarah Santhosham, Bonnie Chiu, Sam Mahtani, Heather Abbey, Helena Tuxworth, and Mudaser Ali.
Pathway Fund Announces its Social Investment Committee
The launch of the Committee marks a major milestone in Pathway's journey.
With our first wave of dormant assets funding now open – covering London & the South-East, the North-West, the South-West, and Yorkshire & the Humber, alongside a national pot – the Committee will sit at the heart of our funding decisions, ensuring that every pound that we deploy is rigorously assessed, rooted in community, and aligned with our mission to catalyse wealth generation and economic justice for BEM communities.
The Social Investment Committee is a sub-committee of the Pathway Board, with delegated authority to oversee Pathway's social investment and grant-making approach and operations.
Its responsibilities include making funding recommendations and decisions for our dormant assets deployment, as well as for delegated programmes funded through philanthropic and government funding.
The Committee is made up of a number of carefully selected individuals, to ensure a balance of key skills and experiences, both lived and learned – and is chaired by one of Pathway‘s founders and NEDs, Bonnie Chiu.
Our Social Investment Committee
Bonnie Chiu – Pathway NED and Committee Chair: Bonnie is Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy (TSIC) and a leading adviser on impact investing and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Established in 2008, TSIC has more than a decade of experience advising over 200 organisations on social impact evaluation and strategic development. Bonnie is also an award-winning social entrepreneur, recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Europe and Young Achiever at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards;
Sarah Santhosham – Pathway NED and Committee member: Sarah is Head of Engagement and Sustainable Investment for The Scott Trust Endowment, which financially supports the Guardian Media Group. Prior to this, Sarah was a civil servant in HM Treasury and other government departments;
Asher Craig – Pathway CEO and ex-officio Committee member: Asher is Chief Executive of Pathway Fund and was recently Deputy Mayor of Bristol. She has dedicated over 30 years to driving social change, advocating for Black, minoritised, and underrepresented communities. At Bristol City Council she held portfolios spanning children and education, equalities, neighbourhoods, and communities — driving forward a more racially equitable food system, the city's first citizens' assembly, and its Community Resilience Fund. She founded the Mosaic Advocacy Centre, serves as a trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust, sits on the board of MAZI, and chairs the Bristol Legacy Foundation;
Heather Abbey – Independent member: Heather is a strategic leader, former civil servant and Founder of Ase Creative Solutions, a consultancy supporting changemakers, funders and public institutions to align values with delivery. Over the past decade she has worked across government, philanthropy and academia – leading grant programmes, building leadership capabilities and strengthening governance in high-pressure environments. Her work is grounded in a deep understanding of race equity and social reform, shaped by both professional and lived experience;
Mudaser Ali – Independent member: Mudaser is passionate about developing communities' capabilities and believes resources should be distributed equitably so that all communities can benefit from collective wealth-building and prosperity. He has led the delivery of lived-experience-led support to charities, social enterprises and public sector bodies at Locality, the Muslim Charities Forum and Crack Willow Enterprises, and has served as an independent member of Key Fund's Social Investment Panel;
Sam Mahtani – Independent member: Sam is a seasoned investment professional with more than three decades of experience in global finance, including over twelve years focused on sustainable and impact investing. He served as Senior Portfolio Manager for Columbia Threadneedle Investments' Responsible Emerging Markets strategy, managing US$2bn in investment assets, and is the founder of Alpha ESG Consulting. Sam has consistently championed the importance of diverse fund management teams and inclusive capital deployment; and
Helena Tuxworth – Independent member and Access representative: Helena is Head of Blended Finance at Access – The Foundation for Social Investment, where she works closely with Access partners, oversees social investment programmes and manages programme governance, including coordinating the Access Investment Committee. Helena has been at Access since 2016.
About the Social Investment Committee
Together, the Committee brings a formidable collective portfolio of expertise – spanning impact investing, sustainable finance, grant-making, governance, public policy, and frontline community infrastructure. Just as importantly, it brings lived experience of the communities Pathway exists to serve. That combination – both lived and learned – is central to how we make decisions, and to our commitment to being rooted in community and led by equity.
The Committee will ensure that the eligibility and assessment of proposals from intermediary organisations are fit for purpose and include adequate risk assessment; oversee the performance of our funding portfolio; and advise our programmes team as our social investment and grant-making approach develops.
It operates under Terms of Reference approved by the Pathway Board in February 2026, alongside our Grant-Making & Social Investment Policy for dormant assets deployment. The Committee's remit covers our dormant assets allocation and delegated philanthropic and government-funded programmes; Pathway's long-term endowment will be overseen separately by a future Impact Investment Committee.
This milestone follows the Government's Policy Direction of October 2025, which confirmed £12 million in catalytic scale-up funding for Pathway Fund – part of the £87.5 million dormant assets allocation to Access – The Foundation for Social Investment, in line with the aspirations of the Community Enterprise Growth Plan.
Pathway will commit this funding between 2026 and 2029, deploying it through intermediary organisations embedded in the communities they serve – and using every pound as a catalyst to crowd in further co-investment for BEM-led charities and social enterprises.
We're enormously grateful to our Committee members for lending their time, expertise and judgement to this work – and we can't wait to get started.
If you have any questions about the Social Investment Committee or our dormant assets deployment, please don't hesitate to reach us at impact@pathwayfund.org.uk.