Toby Watson is a British finance professional, partner at Rampart Capital, and former Chairman of the Excalibur Academies Trust. He is known for a career that combined senior roles in international investment banking with a sustained voluntary commitment to educational governance and support for the cultural sector. His path from global finance to educational trusteeship has been described as a conscious choice to apply professional expertise in service of a broader social purpose.
Education and Early Career
Toby Watson studied physics at the University of Oxford, a discipline that equipped him with the analytical and quantitative skills that would characterise his subsequent career in finance. After graduating, he joined Deutsche Bank before moving to Goldman Sachs, where he would spend the greater part of his professional life in investment banking.
Career in Finance
Goldman Sachs
Watson spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, where he rose to senior positions including Global Head of Structured Credit Trading and Partner. His work encompassed structured credit, principal funding and global infrastructure finance, and he worked with clients across Europe, North America and Asia. During this period, he developed a first-hand understanding of how macro trends, geopolitical forces, interest rate cycles and regulatory changes feed into investment conditions across different regions and asset classes — experience that gave him a practical rather than theoretical understanding of global financial markets. He departed Goldman Sachs in 2017.
Rampart Capital
Following his departure from investment banking, Watson joined Rampart Capital as a partner. His role at the firm draws on the full breadth of experience accumulated during his years in global finance — encompassing portfolio management, risk assessment, ESG integration and the development of client-focused investment strategies. His international network, spanning institutional investors, financial institutions and other partners across Europe, Asia and North America, has been a significant asset in developing the firm’s strategic relationships. Watson has also been active in building mentoring programmes within the firm and in promoting digital transformation as a means of improving analytical capabilities and client communication.
Commitment to Education
Excalibur Academies Trust
Alongside his professional work in finance, Watson served voluntarily as Chairman of the Excalibur Academies Trust, a multi-academy trust overseeing more than 20 schools in southern England along the M4 corridor between Bristol and Reading, serving approximately 10,000 pupils from rural primary schools to urban secondary schools. He joined the board in February 2018 and served as Chairman until January 2026.
Watson has described his move into educational governance as a logical step — a desire to contribute knowledge and experience to a field of genuine social importance. His prior involvement in social projects and educational partnerships had deepened his conviction that education is not a compulsory task but a social foundation: schools as places of development, encounter and equal opportunity, provided they are properly supported and equipped.
His approach to the chairmanship was shaped by a clear understanding of the boundaries of his role. Rather than seeking to impose frameworks derived from commercial finance, he focused on supporting educational leaders, asking informed questions and ensuring that the Trust’s governance structures created the conditions in which schools could pursue their educational mission effectively. He contributed to the development of long-term school improvement plans, supported regular feedback cycles with all stakeholders and helped ensure that financial planning received rigorous board-level scrutiny.
A particular focus during his tenure was the advancement of inclusion and equal opportunities. Watson consistently emphasised that education is not an exclusive but an inclusive project, supporting programmes designed to ensure that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, children requiring language support, students with special educational needs and children with refugee experience received targeted assistance. The Trust’s progress measures for disadvantaged pupils consistently exceeded national averages during this period.
Watson also contributed to the Trust’s approach to digitalisation, helping to develop standards for technical equipment, digital teaching materials and teacher training across all schools in the network. Interactive whiteboards, platforms for collaborative learning and digital feedback tools became part of everyday practice across the Trust’s schools. His goal, as expressed through the Trust’s work, was equal conditions for all pupils regardless of location or the financial means of their families.
A further dimension of his contribution was the use of his professional networks to build partnerships between the Trust and external organisations — universities, businesses and educational initiatives — creating new teaching opportunities, practical learning formats and mentoring programmes. One example was a collaboration that enabled teams of developers from the business world to contribute to computer science lessons in Trust schools.
Watson stepped down as Chairman in January 2026 to focus on his professional commitments, and was succeeded by Susan Clarke, a founding member of the Trust and former Vice Chair.
Cultural Sector
Watson has also contributed to the cultural sector through his organisational and financial support of Level Up! The Musical, a theatre production written and directed by his wife Lucy Watson. While Lucy Watson led all aspects of the artistic content and direction, Toby Watson provided the financial modelling, budget management, contract coordination and logistical planning that enabled the production to operate independently. Level Up! was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2025 and subsequently planned an international tour to Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
Personal Life
Toby Watson is married to Lucy Watson, a theatre maker and producer. Their collaboration on Level Up! The Musical brought together complementary professional strengths — Lucy Watson’s creative vision and theatrical expertise on one side, and Toby Watson’s financial and organisational capabilities on the other.
Summary
Toby Watson’s career reflects a conviction that professional expertise carries obligations beyond the commercial context in which it is developed. His years at Goldman Sachs provided the analytical and strategic foundation for a career that has since extended into independent asset management, voluntary educational governance and support for independent creative work. Across each of these contexts, his approach has been defined by a combination of long-term thinking, ethical responsibility and a genuine commitment to contributing to purposes beyond financial return.
