The Trustees ensure that the Trust delivers on its aims and provides support and challenge to individual schools. They have a key oversight role as well as being involved in the management and delivery of Trust services. Click the links below for more information about the Trustees.
John has been involved in school governance for around twenty years. After primary experience, he became a governor at a local secondary school, Archbishop Holgate’s, where he served as Chair from 2008 – 2022 and led the governing body’s response to the “outstanding” Ofsted inspection in October 2021.
He has been asked by two local authorities to work as an additional governor in some very different school contexts. This has included the huge satisfaction of working with the Governing Boards and Heads at two primary schools, one in serious weakness and one requiring improvement, to achieve “good” judgments in both cases. He has also delivered training courses, licensed by the National College, for the National Governors’ Association for current and aspiring Governing Board Chairs.
He is passionate about outcomes for children, believing that one of governors’ key roles is to work with the Head and Senior Leadership Teams of schools to build aspiration and create “other tomorrows” for pupils. There is a well evidenced link between the quality of governing bodies and the outcomes for learners and he believes that governors need to focus limited resource on things that drive outcomes and “make the boat go faster”; not just in academic attainment (although this has to be non-negotiable) but also in educating the whole child.
Since August 2016 he has chaired the Board of the Pathfinder Multi Academy Trust, a MAT of eighteen schools based in York now with around one thousand colleagues and more than 6,000 young people.
John spent the first half of his working life in various senior sales, marketing and operational roles working for a number of companies including Sainsbury and Nestlé. Since becoming self-employed in 2006 he has built a successful consulting business in both the private and public sectors. He also works as a trainer and specialises in delivering training on leadership and negotiation to more than a dozen blue chip companies in the commercial world, as well as working in the education and health sectors.
Until resigning in October 2014, he sat as the senior non-executive director and deputy Chairman on a local NHS Hospitals Trust with a £480m turnover where he also chaired the Performance and Finance committee. He runs his own wine importing business. He has in recent years also become fascinated by the potential of simple businesses to alleviate poverty in the developing world and has spent some pro bono time in Rwanda, Uganda and Nigeria exploring this. In September 2018 John was made a Lay Canon by the Archbishop of York and appointed to the Chapter of York Minster (the cathedral’s governing executive) where he served a three year term until 2021.
Outside work he is involved in St Hilda’s church in Tang Hall and enjoys spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren as well as reading, long distance walking, playing the piano, and competitive backgammon.
Andy works as a Consultant Histopathologist which is the tissue diagnostic branch of laboratory medicine. He is a member of Christ Church in Heworth. He is deeply committed to the Christian ethos and values of Archbishop Holgate’s school and has been a governor there for the last eleven years.
Andy is a MAT Board member, school improvement lead and Chairman of the MAT Standards Group. For Archbishop Holgate’s he is Chairman of the Curriculum Committee and a Foundation Governor.
Andy’s three children have all completed their education at Hempland primary school and Archbishop Holgate’s school and have moved on to higher education and beyond.
Outside work and school, among many other things he enjoys dinghy racing with his family, being a partner in a small wine business and attempting to unravel the mysteries of his golf game.
Role as link Director for School Improvement
Andy brings his experience on the curriculum committee to his role as school improvement lead for the MAT. This role is delivered through the standards committee which is where results are scrutinised in detail, priorities are set for the year ahead and progress against the priorities is monitored throughout the year.
This strategic work is done in partnership with the Heads Group which delivers the operational implementation. In addition to scrutinising results, priorities and teaching and learning for each group of learners, the standards committee considers carefully the wider curriculum as each of our schools seeks to prepare their children as fully as possible for their next stage in life.
Margaret is an experienced educational professional, with considerable experience working in schools and in various school improvement roles within several local authorities.
Margaret has enjoyed a successful career in a wide range of schools as a classroom teacher, phase leader, deputy headteacher and headteacher. As a headteacher she was instrumental in significantly raising standards of provision and outcomes for pupils, which were sustained over time, leading to a highly successful Ofsted inspection and the school being included in HMCI’S annual report (1995/6).
Seeking a new challenge, Margaret opted for a new direction in her career and gained an appointment as a Local Authority School Improvement Adviser at the start of 2000. Working in school improvement teams in the North East and Humberside she was able to contribute to the introduction and successful implementation of a number of important initiatives and key areas of educational reform before moving to York as Principal Primary Adviser. Whilst in this senior post she led a talented team of consultants, advisers and School Improvement Partners (SIPs) working across the authority with a clear focus on leadership development, improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, accelerating pupil achievement, closing the gap in outcomes between groups of pupils, and improving overall school effectiveness.
Following retirement from her full-time post in York, Margaret became an independent educational consultant in 2013, working directly with schools in different and diverse local authorities with a focus on improving provision and outcomes for children and young people. This included working with school leaders and teaching teams in individual schools / groups of schools and supporting work between schools in a locality or a multi academy trust.
In all of these roles Margaret has had the opportunity to share knowledge, skills and experience with all sectors of the school workforce and governors, impacting positively on the quality of provision, educational outcomes for children and sustainable improvement across individual schools, groups of schools and local authorities.
Throughout her career in education, Margaret has endeavoured to create opportunities and initiatives to enable all children and young people in her care to engage in the process of fulfilling and exciting learning. She is a firm believer in the fundamental value of education as the touchstone for the growth and development of individuals as positive, creative and productive members of society.
Margaret is married and has lived in York since 2004. She enjoys reading, gardening, walking, relaxing with family and friends and having a great time with her young grandson.
Jake Drummond is a Senior Civil Servant in the Cabinet Office, where he plays a leading role in shaping the Government Property Profession, supporting over 7,500 professionals across central government departments. His work focuses on strengthening capability, driving professional standards, and leading complex, high impact programmes across the public estate.
Before joining central government, Jake built a strong foundation in the education sector, spending a decade in senior estates and facilities leadership roles across schools in York. This experience gave him deep expertise in property strategy, capital delivery, compliance, and health and safety, skills he now applies at national level.
Jake is a Chartered Surveyor and a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Building and the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management, where he also serves as Deputy Chair. He is widely recognised for his leadership in the profession, including chairing national conferences and contributing to the development of future talent across the sector.
As Vice Chair of Pathfinder Multi Academy Trust and Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee, Jake brings strategic oversight, assurance, and a strong focus on long term sustainability. In his role as Link Director for Estates and Health and Safety, he works closely with the executive team to ensure the Trust’s estate is safe, compliant, and aligned to its educational ambitions. His approach balances robust governance with a commitment to continuous improvement and collaboration across the Trust.
Jake is passionate about leadership, social mobility, and creating environments where people and organisations can thrive. He is a strong advocate for widening access to opportunity and supporting individuals to reach their full potential.
Outside of work, Jake lives in Pocklington with his wife, Denise. He enjoys running, travelling, and keeping active.
Role as link Director for Estates and Health and Safety
As Link Director for Estates and Health and Safety, Jake provides strategic oversight and assurance to the Board on the safety, compliance, and long term sustainability of the Trust’s estate.
Working closely with the CEO, COO, CFO and Estates and Facilities leadership, he acts as a critical interface between the Board and the executive team, ensuring that key risks are understood, robust systems are in place, and that the Board receives clear, evidence based assurance on statutory compliance and performance.
His focus is on supporting the Trust to take a proactive, forward looking approach to estates management, strengthening governance, shaping long term investment decisions, and embedding a strong culture of health, safety, and continuous improvement across all schools.
Drawing on his national role within central government, Jake brings insight into emerging best practice, regulatory developments, and system wide innovation, helping the Trust to stay ahead of the curve and continually enhance its approach to managing its estate.
Sandara graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Bradford in 1995 before joining Nestle UK. She has over 22 years’ experience working in various Quality Management and Technical roles, including Technical Manager for the Cocoa processing and Chocolate manufacturing plants, and Quality Manager with multi-site responsibility. After the birth of her second child in 2007 she returned to work part time, joining the 3rd Party Team as Quality Manager working with Nestle Affiliates in Europe, Co-manufacturers and Licensees.
At the end of 2014 Sandara joined the Corporate Quality Assurance function initially with responsibility for Supplier Quality Assurance for the market and then later becoming the market expert for chemical contaminants and food fraud. Sandara is responsible for developing cost optimised surveillance plans for the UK, monitoring factory progress against the plans, identifying training requirements and providing training to the factory teams.
Sandara is an experienced food safety and compliance auditor. She regularly audits suppliers and 3rd Parties against the Nestle Food Safety Management System requirements and audits other Nestle functions against ISO 9001:2015 Quality System Management requirements.
Sandara has volunteered her time since 2010 supporting local primary school children in individual and guided reading. She also is a member of the local community swimming pool committee. Sandara has also helped out at Cub and Scout meetings and events, including hikes and weekend camps.
On a personal level, Sandara lives near York with her husband and two children. Sandara enjoys the outdoors including walking her dog, running, and spending as many weekends as possible in the summer camping with her family.
Role as link Director for Compliance
As link Director for compliance Sandara supports the MAT board in identifying areas in which compliance is required, monitoring compliance to relevant standards and ensuring the MAT board is informed of specific issues. Recently this included Sandara working with the MAT Operations Manager to review the progress against the implementation of the new General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679. Other activities include confirming adherence to mandatory policy review schedules and constructive questioning and challenge of senior leaders relating to compliance issues. Within the Pathfinder MAT board there are also link Directors for key compliance areas (Education, SEND, Finance, Safeguarding, Health & Safety). Sandara has experience of monitoring compliance to internal and external standards, and advising on the EU Regulations within her current role in Nestlé UK.
Derek is an experienced Human Resources professional, having held several positions of responsibility in large and medium sized global and UK based culturally diverse companies. His roles have covered all areas of strategic and operational HR within a business, including people development, succession planning, change management, acquisition integrations and compensation management. He considers the role of the HR function within an organisation as critical – people are often a key differentiator, and as individuals they deserve to have the best opportunities they can whilst at the same time delivering a maximum return to the organisation.
Derek relocated from London to York in 2016 for family reasons including superior education opportunities and an improved standard of living for his young family. Prior to the 12 years he spent in London, he and his wife lived in France.
He attributes his family and professional success to having had a strong education when growing up – he feels that he was presented with some great opportunities that met his individual needs, and that have ultimately led him to where he is now. He has also had good insight into educational life through his wife, who is a primary school teacher.
His personal and professional experiences, and the fact that he has a young family, have led to his passion for the importance of the right start in life for young people.
Role as link Director for Human Resources
As link Director for Human Resources (HR), Derek works closely with the Trust, providing an informal interface between the MAT board and the MAT HR function. Discussions cover all areas of HR/People activity, ranging from strategic direction discussions to day to day operational issues. A key output of the link relationship is the ability to provide to the board a comprehensive and robust overview of employee related matters, metrics and trends, in order that key decisions can be taken in this area.
Dr Jo Mannion is a Consultant Paediatrician with an Interest in Young People’s Health and a Senior Clinical Director in the York and Scarborough NHS Hospitals NHS Trust
She joined the Board in 2023, new to education governance but highly experienced in clinical governance and children’s safeguarding and multiagency partnership working. She is passionate about public services, having worked exclusively in the NHS since 1994. Both her children are educated in Pathfinder schools.
Having reached a stable position in her career she was keen to find a new challenge and give something back to the local community. Reviewing the National Government Association skills audit she discovered she had many transferrable required skills for the role of Trustee.
She gains satisfaction every day from making a difference to lives of children and families and found clinical leadership roles has enabled this difference to be amplified. She believes that happy school lives are fundamental to children’s wellbeing and development. She is proud of Pathfinder’s strong commitment to pastoral support for their children and young people, and is looking forward to contributing to that.
Jo is married and is mum to two sporty teenage boys she spends her time watching her sons play sport, dog-walking, travelling and skiing, reading (especially historical fiction), playing tennis and meeting up with her very large extended family in Cheshire. She sits on the Pathfinder Standards Committee.
Michael retired early in 2023. He worked for thirty years as a parish priest in four parishes in the Diocese of Oxford and then for the last 10 years as a Residentiary Canon at York Minster. For most of 2022 he was the Acting Dean at York Minster.
Beginning in 1989, in addition to his parish responsibilities, Michael worked as part time chaplain to Helen House, Hospice for Children in Oxford for 14 years and then for Thames Hospicecare in Windsor for 3 years. He particularly enjoyed working as part of a multi-disciplinary team at both these hospices. Before moving to York he was Area Dean of Maidenhead for two years.
While working as a parish priest Michael served as a governor at two or three schools and at York Minster he served for 8 years on the governing board at Archbishop Holgate’s School.
As a Residentiary Canon at York Minster Michael was a member of the cathedral Chapter, the body which runs all aspects of the cathedral. This entailed maintaining the balance between the cathedral being, primarily, a place of worship but also a major tourist attraction and a need to raise enough income to maintain the building, estate and organisation for future generations to enjoy. Once again he thoroughly enjoyed working collegially with others, working out strategy and making decisions in line with the values and primary purpose of the cathedral, while always paying attention to ensuring the place was also a viable business.
Michael has always particularly enjoyed the pastoral work that was an essential part of all his ministry (at York Minster he was Canon Pastor). He has been a lifelong Christian, believing that faith is more about becoming fully human than it is about being overtly religious. A strong Christian ethos in a school or a MAT board is therefore about creating a just and compassionate community in which everyone (of faith, different faith or no faith) has the opportunity to thrive and test their potential and not, primarily about sectarianism or bolstering church attendance.
Michael has just begun working in a voluntary capacity in a local prison. He enjoys spending time with his wife, family and friends. He also thoroughly enjoys running (not fast), cycling (not far) and sometimes attempting to play golf (poorly).
Sheena worked in education for forty years as a teacher, Deputy Headteacher, lecturer, Headteacher and School Improvement Advisor. After twenty one years of Headship she chose to take early retirement in 2017 having fulfilled her ambition of building a new school for the Heslington community. This coincided with changes to her personal life as she had an integral part in the restructuring of systems for the family farmstead and the building of a new farm.
Alongside the challenge of building works and planning permission, Sheena worked as an education consultant for the City of York Council supporting Headteachers new to role. In 2017 she began working part time for Pathfinder Multi Academy Trust in the central team supporting schools with leadership and school improvement.
Throughout her education career she has been a school governor working in rural, urban and city schools. She has also had a four year office as a Trustee of a Multi Academy Trust from 2017-2021. As part of this role she had responsibility for special needs and safeguarding. Sheena believes strongly that every child should have equality of opportunity in the education system no matter what their starting points are.
She has a keen interest in local history and has been a member of York Civic Trust Education Committee since 2015. Sheena enjoys keeping fit, playing Bridge and trying to keep up with the daily management of rearing a herd of cattle with her family.
Angela is an experienced educational professional, whose teaching experience spans over thirty years in a variety of schools on both sides of The Pennines. She has been a Subject leader, Phase Leader and Deputy Headteacher. Since 2004 she has been a Headteacher, working in both a large primary and an independent school. Always ambitious for all pupils, Angela led the two schools through extremely successful inspections within Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate. After a brief career break, Angela became the teaching Headteacher of a small, rural school for two years before retiring in August 2025.
As well as a wealth of experience in school leadership, Angela brings to the board a passion for driving the best possible outcomes for pupils, alongside making learning as engaging as possible. Her mantra is to achieve ‘fun amongst the rigour’ in any educational setting. Her work as Deputy and Headteacher has focused on improving attainment and progress for pupils of all abilities, effective use of assessment, improving teaching and learning and ensuring a safe and caring place in which pupils and staff can thrive. She has been fortunate to work with many talented staff during her career and three committed Governing Bodies. Working alongside other school leaders within a cluster of schools in York, Angela was involved in a number of projects to successfully improve phonics, reading and writing outcomes for pupils.
Angela lives in York with her husband and family. She is a Church Bellringer (who was once in the winning team of the National 12 bell Competition). She also enjoys reading, baking and trying to play the piano with most of the notes in the right order.
Rod grew up in Scotland and the West Country before gaining a BSc Eng Hons degree from Aberdeen University in Engineering. His early career took him from technical manufacturing, through to product development and marketing of textiles for Courtaulds in Nottingham. After gaining an MBA Masters degree at the Strathclyde Graduate Business School he followed a passion and moved to Yorkshire, developing international business for Sara Lee Bakery and marketing the UK’s favourite dessert.
Rod then brought big business experience to a local farm diversification project creating a new business strategy, developing its marketing and operations and rapidly growing its stature as an innovative national supplier to major multiples, councils and private nurseries with exclusive international distributorships. He then gained investment from a leading Japanese PLC and led the merger with their original UK company as Managing Director. Rod was also elected to the industry committee that founded and promoted the new sector accreditation scheme and acted as an independent consultant for a leading German Plant Breeder.
Rod moved to the public sector to lead commercial and business development for Defra’s Central Science Laboratories outside York and developed the new “Fera” corporate identity while on the senior leadership team designing and delivering a new organisation by merging multiple government agencies. Rod now works for the core department, Defra, leading commercial and corporate change projects investing in improved services and capabilities and leading assurance reviews of other major government projects.
Rod brings significant experience of developing business models, teams and brands and of investing in innovation and service improvements, managing operations within tight constraints and introducing corporate changes to diverse organisations and sectors. He was first a parent governor at Amotherby Primary School and, prior to joining Pathfinder, served at Malton School across all committees as well as on the PTA.
Alastair is a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he has worked since 2013. As a management consultant he has worked with organisations large and small in the public and private sectors to improve their performance through operational improvements and pursuing new and different strategies. He has worked throughout the UK as well as mainland Europe and serves clients in the Energy, Manufacturing and Clean Technology sectors. He counsels senior leaders and Boards on their organisations biggest challenges and then helps them make the solutions stick.
Prior to McKinsey, Alastair worked in the Oil and Gas sector, managing major contracts for major projects in the North Sea. This involved significant amounts of commercial negotiation, contract and project management.
As well as his client work, Alastair has championed socio-economic diversity at McKinsey, setting up the PRISM initiative to ensure that people from all backgrounds have the opportunity to thrive in the organisation.
He lives in York with his young family where 2 of his children attend schools in the PMAT family. He is a keen runner and loves the great outdoors
Sarah has worked in the NHS for 22 years in a variety of hospital, commissioning and partnership roles and is a qualified Executive Coach specialising in system leadership.
Sarah is wife to Daniel, a Lieutenant Colonel with The Royal Yorkshire Regiment and mum to Eve, Avery and Ethan.
Sarah attended Archbishop Holgate’s School in the 1990s and credits her teachers with opening her eyes to university and career opportunities, having previously never realised that these might be options for her. She gained a first-class honours degree from Lancaster University and went on to part time post-graduate study whilst working, at the University of Birmingham and the University of Manchester in the 2000s, and University of York in the 2010s.
Sarah joined the PMAT Board in October 2025 and says of her motivations in applying; “I have encountered first-hand the potential for school experience and outcomes to transform lives and break generational cycles. I believe that people are a product of their surroundings, and improving school experience and outcomes starts with understanding wider determinants through the eyes of children, young people and families. I understand public service and the benefits working together can bring, as well as the challenges, not to mention the complexities!”
Sarah hopes to bring her experiences and skills to PMAT in ways that unlock practical benefits for children.