For professionals who have built careers in demanding, high-pressure industries, the idea of taking on a voluntary role in education might seem an unlikely next step — yet the example of Toby Watson suggests that the commitment involved is one that repays itself in ways that are difficult to quantify but genuinely meaningful.
Voluntary trusteeship in the academy sector asks a great deal of those who take it on. The responsibilities are real, the time commitment is substantial and the work is largely invisible to those outside the boardroom. Yet, experienced professionals willing to give their time can make a significant difference to the schools that benefit from their involvement. Toby Watson, whose career in global finance spanned close to two decades, is one example of someone who chose to direct that experience towards educational governance — and whose contribution, sustained over nearly eight years, speaks for itself.
The concept of giving back is one that sits comfortably in the vocabulary of professional life without always translating into meaningful action. For Toby Watson, however, it took a concrete form: nearly eight years as Chairman of Excalibur Academies Trust, a multi-academy trust educating approximately 10,000 pupils across twenty schools along the M4 corridor between Bristol and Reading. Toby Watson stepped down from the role in early 2026 to focus on his business commitments, having overseen a period of significant growth and change. His tenure offers a thoughtful illustration of what sustained voluntary commitment to education can look like in practice.
Why Giving Back to Education Is Harder Than It Sounds
The phrase “giving back” can sometimes obscure the reality of what voluntary leadership in education actually involves. Serving as a trustee — and particularly as chairman — of a large multi-academy trust is a substantive commitment. It involves legal accountability, financial oversight and a responsibility to the thousands of pupils and staff whose working and learning lives are shaped by the decisions made in the boardroom.
For professionals accustomed to the pace of a commercial career, the voluntary sector can also feel unfamiliar in ways that take time to navigate. Decision-making tends to be slower and more collegiate. The culture is different. And the absence of financial reward means that motivation must come from somewhere other than professional self-interest. None of this makes the role unappealing — but it does mean that those who take it on need to be genuinely prepared for what it involves.
What Motivates Experienced Professionals to Volunteer in Education?
The motivations that lead experienced professionals to take on voluntary roles in education vary, but a few themes recur. For some, there is a personal connection to a school or community. For others, the motivation is rooted in a sense of obligation: those who have been given opportunities have something to offer in return. Toby Watson, whose career at Goldman Sachs provided him with access to some of the most demanding professional environments in the world, appears to have been guided by the latter. His decision to serve as Chairman of Excalibur for nearly eight years was not a career move — it was a considered choice to make his experience available to an organisation working in the public interest.
What Toby Watson’s Commitment to Excalibur Looked Like in Practice
Toby Watson joined the board of Excalibur Academies Trust in February 2018 and served as Chairman until early 2026. Over that period, the trust expanded through merger with Gatehouse Green Learning Trust and managed a major leadership transition in 2024, when CEO Nicky Edmondson stepped down and was succeeded by Nick Lewis. For Toby Watson, navigating these changes as Chairman meant holding a steady course — ensuring that the trust’s values and direction remained clear even as the surrounding organisation shifted.
Providing Stability During a Period of Change
Throughout these transitions, Toby Watson’s role was one of quiet stability. As Chairman, his contribution was to ensure the board functioned effectively, that trustees had the information they needed and that the organisation maintained a clear sense of its values during periods of uncertainty. That kind of steady background presence is something schools and their communities depend upon — often without being fully aware of quite how much it matters.
The Value of Sustained Engagement Over Time
One of the less-visible aspects of Toby Watson’s contribution is simply its duration. Eight years is a significant tenure for a voluntary role — one that allowed him to develop a deep understanding of the trust’s schools, communities and challenges that could only have been built over time. That accumulated knowledge proved genuinely valuable throughout his tenure, particularly during the periods of transition that marked his later years in the role.
How Toby Watson’s Professional Background Informed His Voluntary Work
The connection between Toby Watson’s professional background and his work at Excalibur is worth understanding clearly. Toby Watson’s time at Goldman Sachs — working in structured finance and principal funding across global markets — gave him analytical and organisational skills that transferred meaningfully into a governance context, even though the two settings could hardly be more different on the surface.
Among the most directly applicable were:
- Financial literacy — the ability to engage critically with budgets, audit reports and long-term projections, rather than accepting summaries at face value
- Risk awareness — an instinct for identifying where structural or operational risk might be accumulating, and for asking the questions most likely to bring it to the surface
These are qualities that every well-governed trust needs, and their presence on a board makes a meaningful difference to the quality of oversight the organisation receives.
Why the Example of Toby Watson Matters Beyond Excalibur
The broader significance of Toby Watson’s involvement at Excalibur lies in what it illustrates about the potential for experienced professionals to contribute meaningfully to educational governance alongside their primary professional commitments. It is a reminder that voluntary leadership, when approached with the right combination of expertise and humility, can make a real and lasting difference.
Among the things that make such contributions sustainable are:
- A genuine alignment between the values of the individual and the mission of the organisation they are serving
- A willingness to invest the time needed to understand the context, rather than assuming professional expertise alone is sufficient
That is what makes the commitment worthwhile: not the profile it confers, but the difference it makes to the schools fortunate enough to benefit from it.
