Effective governance within MTOAT is achieved through a shared vision and a connected thread of delegated responsibility and accountability. Whilst the Board cannot ever delegate its accountability, it can and must delegate some of the detailed scrutiny, oversight and decision-making.
MTOAT’s governance structure is:
The Members are the guardians of the constitution (the Articles of Association) and the application of MTOAT vision and goals within the Trust.
The Trust Board is accountable to the Members, to the Secretary of State for Education and to the wider community for the quality of the education provided to all of our registered students and for the appropriate expenditure of public money.
The Local Governing Board for each school or college – provides scrutiny of the delivery on the academy improvement plan and academy budget, holding the school’s leadership to account. The Chair (or Vice Chair when appropriate) of each Local Governing Body is a Director/Trustee of MTOAT and joins the MTOAT Trust Board. The Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Trust Board have the right to attend Local Governing Board meetings of any Local Governing Body.
Members
H Carter
J Pebworth (on sabbatical)
A Sanders
The Merchant Taylors' Company
The Oxford Diocesan Board of Education
Trustees
Lynda Atkins
Lynda Atkins is a Deputy Lieutenant for Oxfordshire, and is involved in a number of groups and charities working with the Armed Forces having served in both the RAF and the TA. She is currently the National Vice Chair of The Royal British Legion and has a particular interest in the education of Service Children.
Previously she was the County Councillor for Wallingford and Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and twice Mayor of the town. She was a Department of Health senior civil servant and ran her own company for a while. She was also a Chartered Personnel Manager.
Lynda was a student at Wallingford School a long time ago.
Neil Carberry - F&A Chair
Neil Carberry was appointed as Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation in June 2018. In 1999, Neil began his career in recruitment working for executive search firm Fraser Watson before doing a post-graduate degree in Human Resources at the London School of Economics and joining the CBI in 2004. He led the CBI’s work on the labour market, skills, energy and infrastructure. He is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, a Fellow of the RSA and a member of the Company of HR Professionals.
Neil is a member of the Council of the conciliation service ACAS and a former member of the Low Pay Commission, which recommends UK minimum wages. A seven-time nominee to the SIA staffing 100 in Europe, he is also on the board and exec of the World Employment Confederation. Neil is an RFU-qualified rugby referee and coach and is one of the 8000 co-owners who made Heart of Midlothian the UK’s biggest fan-owned football club.
Annie Eggar
Annie Eggar is both a State Registered Nurse and a teacher. She obtained her nursing qualifications at the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and a First Class degree in primary education at the University of Hertfordshire. She has practiced as a primary teacher in the Maintained Sector, specialising in special educational needs and inclusion. Annie is a member of both the Merchant Taylors’ Company and the Worshipful Company of Educators.
Linda Hull
Linda Hull is an ODBE appointed trustee. She currently works for Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire Teacher Training as the Primary Subject Specialist, with additional responsibilities for quality assurance and wellbeing. Prior to this role, she was Headteacher of Kidmore End CE Primary School and has been a primary school teacher and leader in Oxfordshire for 25 years. Throughout her career she has been particularly interested in teaching and learning and developing people at all levels.
Linda is a governor at two local primary schools and is the Parish Safeguarding Officer for St Mary le More and St Leonard's in Wallingford. She is married and has two teenage children.
Ken McCrea - Vice Chair
Ken McCrea had a varied career, initially graduating with a Psychology degree from Hull University, with a particular interest in both Clinical and Environmental Psychology. In 1978, he joined a major London advertising agency, McCann Erickson where he spent 8 years, leaving to join a smaller agency as Client Services Director and then moved on to be Managing Director.
In 1990, he started his own advertising agency, based in Covent Garden and which he ran successfully as Chief Executive until 2002. After 25 years working in London, Ken decided it was time for a change and moved himself and his family out to Oxfordshire to run a traditional golf club, based near Henley-on-Thames. He became a Parent Governor at the school in 2010 and in 2011 was appointed as a Governor/Council Member of Bucks New University. Ken is the Chairman of the Wallingford School Foundation and also Chair of Governors at Aylesbury UTC.
Jon Pebworth
Jon Pebworth is a co-opted trustee, and member of MTOAT (on sabbatical). He was previously a governor of Wallingford School for 12 years, serving as Chairman for 3 years and as Chairman of Resources Committee before that. Jon was also previously an MTOAT trustee for 4 years and was Chairman of the Finance & Audit Committee.
Jon is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Management Accountants and holds an MBA. He worked in several industries including food, cosmetics, cement, property and utilities. Prior to retirement he was Managing Director of a utilities subsidiary of a FTSE100 company. Jon is also a trustee of Wallingford Sports Trust and a director of the local community festival Bunkfest. Jon has lived in Wallingford for almost 50 years and attended Wallingford Grammar School. He has three children all of whom attended the school.
Michael Stanes
Michael Stanes had a long career in investment management in the UK, the US and Japan. He has served as a non-executive director on investment company boards, and currently sits on the Audit, Investment and Risk Committee of The Royal College of Occupational Therapists.
Michael has a BA in Law from Oxford University and a Masters in Psychology from the University of Reading. He is married with two teenage children.
Tim Vallings
Tim Vallings sits on the MTOAT Board, representing the Merchant Taylors' Company where he is a member of the livery. Having sold his company, providing high resolution analysis of natural resources all over the world using satellite technologies, for the past couple of years, Tim has been working as the VP of Data at Iceye, the world's largest low-orbit radar constellation, providing intelligence to Governments around the world, including the Ukraine. He has lived locally with his wife and two children since 2009.
For a number of years, Tim sat on his local Parish Council, chairing between 2014-2016. He spent the first 10 years of his career based in Africa working with post conflict governments, focusing on economic recovery and looking to ensure natural assets were being optimised commercially and enabling developing economies to build on the extraordinarily high need for improvements in education and health. In 2016, at the third time of asking, he successfully completed a 6-man relay swim across the English Channel and occasionally plays the trumpet in a couple of local bands.
Alastair Wilcox - Chair
Alastair Wilcox has an MA in Electrical and Information Sciences from the University of Cambridge. He has had a career in the IT industry spanning over 35 year delivering IT consultancy, software design, software engineering and systems design for large-scale public-sector projects. The majority of these were for Schools and Local Authorities. In 2011 he began working as a freelancer providing IT consultancy to private sector organisations, charities and the UK Government Department for Education.
Alastair was elected as a Parent Governor at Brightwell Primary School in 2015; becoming Chair of the Resources Committee later that year and then Chair of Governors in 2016. He led the successful academisation of Brightwell Primary School and its adoption into MTOAT in 2017 and joined the MTOAT Board at that point. Alastair stepped down as a Governor at Brightwell in 2023, has Chaired the Trust Finance and Audit Committee since early 2023 and served as Vice Chair of the Board since September 2023.
Key Personnel
John Marston - Chief Executive Officer & Accounting Officer
John Marston has been the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Merchant Taylors’ Oxfordshire Academy Trust (MTOAT) and Headteacher of Wallingford School, his second headship, since 2019. He has worked in five secondary schools all rated either “Good” or “Outstanding” by Ofsted and has been a senior leader across three schools for over 20 years.
John has a Masters in Educational Leadership and has been involved with a number of external partners focused on school improvement. John has led MTOAT through a period of growth with the addition of Aylesbury UTC to the Trust in 2021 and overseen the significant development of the Trust’s capacity and support functions.
Lynne Harrison – Trust Operations Director & Company Secretary
Lynne undertook AAT training in the early 1990s, followed by ILM Leadership and Management level 5 certification in 1996. Working with, and leading part of, Oxfordshire CC Schools’ Finance Team, providing quality assurance on the spending of public funds and guidance for Headteachers and finance staff in budget planning and management of LA schools. In 2008, Lynne joined Wallingford School, working with the Head and governing body in turning around a 300k deficit into a balanced budget prior to converting the school into a highly successful academy in 2012. Lynne has continued her CPD, focusing primarily on HR and employment law as the Trust has grown.
Finbarr Bevan - Trust Finance Director
Finbarr began his career by training as an auditor and completed his ACA in 2013. Finbarr gained experience working as a finance manager in multinational companies before taking the role of Assistant Bursar at Shiplake College in 2019, his first position in education. Finbarr joined MTOAT in 2022 and has helped oversee the growth of the Trust and the evolution of the finance function.