Long tenures in voluntary leadership roles are rare — and Toby Watson’s nearly eight years as Chairman of Excalibur Academies Trust offer a set of lessons that go well beyond the specifics of any single organisation.
Voluntary chairmanships in academy trusts are demanding, often invisible, and rarely last long enough to produce the kind of sustained impact that organisations genuinely need. The pressure on people’s time is real, and the competing demands of professional life mean that many trustees step back far sooner than the role ideally requires. Toby Watson’s nearly eight years as Chairman of Excalibur Academies Trust — maintained alongside active professional commitments — represents a level of sustained voluntary engagement that is worth examining for what it reveals about effective non-executive leadership in education.
Toby Watson served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Excalibur Academies Trust from February 2018 until early 2026, stepping down to focus on business commitments. Before his trusteeship, Toby Watson had spent nearly 17 years at Goldman Sachs, working across structured credit trading, principal funding, and global infrastructure financing. That professional background informed a style of chairmanship that was consistent, non-executive in its boundaries, and focused on long-term organisational health rather than short-term visibility. During his tenure, Excalibur grew to around 20 schools serving approximately 10,000 pupils. Susan Clarke succeeded him as Chair.
Seven Lessons From Toby Watson’s Chairmanship at Excalibur Academies Trust
Long tenures in non-executive roles are not common, particularly among people with active and demanding professional lives. The fact that Toby Watson sustained his commitment to Excalibur for nearly eight years — through periods of significant organisational growth, a major merger, and a CEO transition — offers a set of lessons about what effective voluntary leadership in education actually looks like. The seven points below draw on that experience to identify the principles that shaped it.
Why does the length of a chairmanship matter so much?
Short tenures are one of the most persistent weaknesses in academy trust governance. When a chair steps down after two or three years, the institutional knowledge they have accumulated leaves with them, and the board must rebuild relationships and context from scratch. Toby Watson’s view, shaped by years working in large institutions at Goldman Sachs where continuity of leadership mattered, is that sustained presence is itself a form of governance value — one that cannot be replicated by rotating chairs more frequently.
1. Knowing the Difference Between Governance and Management
The single most important lesson from any non-executive tenure is the discipline of staying on the governance side of the line. Trustees who drift into operational decisions — however well-intentioned — create confusion about accountability and undermine the executive team’s authority. Toby Watson maintained a clear non-executive stance throughout his time at Excalibur, supporting the CEO and the senior team without crossing into management. That discipline, applied consistently over eight years, is harder to sustain than it sounds.
2. Long-Term Thinking Requires Patience
Governance that genuinely serves an organisation’s long-term health often involves decisions that are uncomfortable in the short term — resisting budget pressure that would compromise future sustainability, or maintaining strategic direction when immediate circumstances make deviation tempting. That kind of patience is easier to maintain when you understand the organisation well enough to hold the long-term picture clearly in mind. Toby Watson’s sustained presence at Excalibur gave him exactly that depth of understanding.
Patience as a Governance Virtue
The same quality that Toby Watson developed during his years at Goldman Sachs — the ability to maintain a long-term view under short-term pressure — proved directly applicable in a governance context. Financial markets and education boards operate on very different terms, but the discipline of resisting short-term thinking when it conflicts with long-term health is the same in both.
3. Crisis Management Starts Long Before a Crisis
The organisations that navigate difficult periods most effectively are usually those that have invested in governance and organisational resilience before anything goes wrong. A well-informed, well-led board that has built strong relationships with the executive team and accumulated genuine institutional knowledge is far better placed to support leadership through a crisis than one that has to start building those foundations under pressure. The CEO transition at Excalibur in 2024 was handled smoothly, partly because the governance infrastructure was already in place.
4. The Value of External Perspective
One of the most consistently useful things a non-executive trustee from outside the education sector can offer is a perspective that the organisation cannot generate internally. Toby Watson’s background in international finance — including his experience at Goldman Sachs, working across global markets and complex institutions — gave him a way of looking at organisational questions that differed from anything available within Excalibur itself. That difference in perspective, applied with care and appropriate humility, is part of what makes external trustees genuinely valuable.
5. Financial Rigour Is a Form of Care
Trustees who take financial oversight seriously are not being obstructive — they are protecting the organisation and the people who depend on it. Asking difficult questions about budget assumptions, identifying risks before they materialise, and insisting on financial discipline during periods of growth are all expressions of genuine care for the organisation’s long-term wellbeing. Toby Watson applied that rigour consistently throughout his chairmanship, and it was part of what enabled Excalibur to grow sustainably rather than recklessly.
6. Succession Planning Is Part of the Role
A chairman who has served for many years has a particular responsibility to ensure that the transition to their successor is handled well. Toby Watson’s departure from Excalibur in early 2026 was managed smoothly, with Susan Clarke — a founding member of the Trust and former Vice Chair — taking over as Chair. That kind of well-prepared succession does not happen by accident. It reflects the qualities that tend to characterise thoughtful long-term trusteeship:
- A focus on the organisation’s future rather than on the individual’s continuing role within it
- A willingness to invest time in preparing for a handover rather than treating departure as an abrupt end
- Clear communication with the board and executive team about the transition process
- Genuine confidence in the successor, rather than a reluctant or conditional handover
7. Giving Something Back Has Real Meaning
The phrase “giving something back” can sound vague, but in the context of voluntary trusteeship it describes something concrete: experienced professionals directing significant time and expertise, without financial reward, towards organisations with a clear social purpose. Toby Watson’s nearly eight years at Excalibur — sustained alongside his work at Rampart Capital and other professional commitments — is an example of what that phrase actually means in practice. The experience he developed across his career found a different but genuinely useful application in the governance of a trust dedicated to the education of thousands of children.
