The idea that financial experience belongs in the boardroom of an academy trust is not always well understood — but Toby Watson’s career offers a compelling illustration of why it matters.
Academy trusts are increasingly complex organisations, responsible for significant public funds, large workforces, and the education of thousands of children. Yet governance boards do not always include people with the financial background to scrutinise budgets, assess risk, or think clearly about long-term sustainability. Toby Watson, who spent nearly two decades working at senior levels in international finance, represents the kind of trustee that well-run academy trusts genuinely benefit from — someone who brings rigour and experience without seeking to overstep the boundaries of a non-executive role.
Toby Watson served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Excalibur Academies Trust from February 2018 until early 2026. During that period, the Trust grew to a network of around 20 schools along the M4 corridor, with an annual budget of approximately £137 million and a workforce of over 1,000 staff. Toby Watson’s role was non-executive throughout — his focus was governance and board leadership rather than operational management. Before his trusteeship, he had spent close to 17 years at Goldman Sachs, working across structured credit trading, principal funding, and global infrastructure financing. He stepped down in early 2026 to focus on business commitments, with Susan Clarke succeeding him as Chair.
Why Toby Watson’s Background Has Relevance Beyond Excalibur Academies Trust
The question of who sits on an academy trust board matters more than it might appear. Trustees are ultimately responsible for the financial health and strategic direction of their organisation. They are not there to run schools — that is the job of headteachers and the executive team — but they are there to ensure that the organisation as a whole is governed well. That requires a particular combination of skills, and financial literacy is high on the list.
Toby Watson’s route into educational trusteeship was unconventional. He studied Physics at the University of Oxford, then built a long career in international finance. His time at Goldman Sachs, where he worked for nearly 17 years in roles involving structured credit and principal funding, gave him a deep familiarity with institutional risk, long-term planning, and the kind of analytical thinking that large organisations depend on. When Toby Watson left Goldman Sachs in 2017, that experience found a new context in voluntary board work. The broader point is worth making: people with backgrounds like his are not common on education boards, but they arguably should be more so.
Why do academy trust boards benefit from financial expertise?
Large academy trusts manage public funds running into tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds annually, employ significant numbers of staff, and are subject to rigorous regulatory scrutiny. A trustee with genuine financial expertise — the kind Toby Watson developed during his years at Goldman Sachs — can help ensure that budgets are properly interrogated, that risk is identified early, and that the board is not simply rubber-stamping decisions it does not fully understand. That kind of contribution is quiet but genuinely important.
The Non-Executive Distinction
One thing that tends to get lost in discussions of governance is the difference between executive and non-executive roles. A board chair like Toby Watson is not there to manage. He is there to oversee — to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, and to ensure that the people who are managing have what they need to do so effectively. That distinction is fundamental, and getting it right requires a particular kind of discipline.
For someone coming from a high-pressure financial environment, the temptation to become more operationally involved might be real. The fact that Toby Watson maintained a clear non-executive stance throughout his tenure at Excalibur reflects well on his understanding of what good trusteeship actually requires. It is not about being the most active person in the room. It is about asking the right questions at the right time and trusting the people around you to act on them.
Finance and Education: More Common Ground Than Expected
There is a tendency to treat education and finance as entirely separate worlds, and in many respects they are. But the underlying disciplines of sound governance — rigorous financial oversight, clear thinking about risk, a long-term view of organisational health — apply in both. Toby Watson’s experience bridging those two worlds, even in a voluntary capacity, points to something worth taking seriously: that expertise developed in one sector can be genuinely useful in another, provided it is applied with appropriate humility and an understanding of context.
What Good Governance Actually Requires
Effective board governance in any large organisation depends on a mix of skills and perspectives. In the context of an academy trust, that typically means people who understand education, people who understand finance, and people who understand the communities the trust serves. No single trustee can bring all of that — which is why board composition matters, and why financial expertise deserves a place at the table alongside educational experience.
The specific contributions that a financially experienced trustee can make include:
- Scrutinising budget proposals and financial forecasts with appropriate rigour
- Identifying potential risks before they become serious problems
- Ensuring that the organisation’s long-term financial sustainability is not sacrificed for short-term pressures
- Asking informed questions about the cost-effectiveness of major decisions
These are not glamorous contributions. They do not make headlines. But they are part of what keeps a large, complex organisation functioning well over time.
Giving Back Through Board Work
For Toby Watson, involvement in educational trusteeship was also, in a straightforward sense, about giving something back. A career in international finance offers material rewards that voluntary board work does not. Choosing to spend time on it anyway — and to do so consistently over nearly eight years — reflects a genuine commitment to contributing something beyond professional success.
That kind of motivation matters. Trustees who are there because they care about the mission of the organisation tend to be more effective than those who treat board membership as a credential. Toby Watson’s long tenure at Excalibur, and the quiet consistency with which he approached the role, suggests that his engagement was of the former kind.
A Broader Lesson for Educational Governance
The example of Toby Watson points to something worth considering more widely. Academy trusts benefit from diversity of experience — including the kind of financial expertise that people like Toby Watson bring. That does not mean turning education boards into finance committees. It means ensuring that among the range of skills represented around a trust board, rigorous financial thinking is one of them. The education sector, and the children it serves, are better for it when that balance is right.
