Get to know Carly
As Together Active’s CEO, I lead our day to day and work closely with our Board to ensure the charity is well governed, financially sustainable and true to its purpose.
I oversee our strategic direction, partnerships and external relationships, and line manage our Leadership Team. My role is to create the conditions for the organisation to thrive by setting direction, holding accountability, and making sure our work delivers meaningful change for the communities in our region.
What do Together Active’s values mean to you and your role?
Together Active’s values underpin the way I choose to lead and remind me that how we do the work matters just as much as what we achieve.
For me, they mean being honest, being brave when needed, listening properly to people’s lived experience, and staying focused on reducing inequality rather than chasing activity for its own sake.
In my role, they shape the culture I try to create which is one where we challenge constructively, support each other well, and hold ourselves accountable to the communities we exist to serve.
What does Together Active’s mission mean to you?
Our mission is about fairness and making sure that where you live, what you earn, your background or your health doesn’t determine whether you can move, connect and thrive.
For me, it’s not just about sport or physical activity, it’s about people’s fundamental rights. Our mission centres my focus on creating opportunity and systems that work better for people who are too often overlooked.
What does inclusion and access in physical activity mean to you?
True inclusion in physical activity isn’t about creating a programme for the mainstream and then trying to adapt it for everyone else. It’s about designing barriers and exclusion out from the start.
In our context, that means thinking differently about who activities are for: who feels comfortable in those spaces, who can afford to attend, who has access to transport, who sees themselves represented, and who may have had negative experiences of sport and movement in the past.
For me, inclusion and access means reshaping physical activity so it genuinely works for people facing the greatest inequalities. It means ensuring movement becomes something that feels safe, relevant and fulfilling, not intimidating or out of reach.