Matt Clifton

Chief Executive

I joined bemix, then Skillnet Group, in late 2012, becoming Chief Executive in mid-2013. I aim to honour and strengthen the company’s founding values: working alongside people with learning difficulties and/or autism as genuine equals and unique individuals, and acting thoughtfully and compassionately in all we do. Being surrounded by people living and breathing these values has been life-changing for me.

I am also committed to strengthening our work following economic austerity, the collapse of Valuing People, the national strategy for learning disability of 2001. Since 2013, we have branched out from social care to include post-16 education and mental health, and from East Kent into Medway. We have rebranded, become a serious supported employment provider, advanced wellbeing support and co-production in mental health, and renewed pioneering work in self-advocacy.

Before bemix, I was in Christian leadership with my wife Lynne in the Salvation Army for 11 years. I helped set up two of Kent’s earliest cold weather shelters for homeless people, with a model now used across the county. I was a guest speaker in European and world youth conventions and columnist in the Salvation Army's international leadership journal.

While leadership remains central to my working life, leading the bemix way includes creating a space in which others, with and without learning difficulties, take centre stage. I never hold back with my strong values and views, but love it when everyone else does the same. Who we are and what we do is shaped by all of us. We are many, and we are one.

I love my job, but even bemix as a cause is not all-consuming! Downtime includes family fun with my wife and three children, debating the meaning of life with close friends, indoor sport climbing and running outdoors in wild places – never, ever on a treadmill! I also love playing drums and percussion.