Why professional development for CEOs is crucial for the sector

Being a school trust CEO is both a privilege and a responsibility: the privilege of shaping the education of thousands of children, and the responsibility of carrying a weight of accountability that few others truly understand.

It’s a role like no other: it brings the opportunity to make a difference to thousands of children's lives.

This is why serious, deliberate, network-building PD for CEOs matters.

Personal renewal: space to think and grow

One of the clearest lessons from the School Trust CEO programme has been the sheer importance of protected space for reflection. Fellows (our term for programme participants) spoke of the relief of being with peers who understood the role, where candour was possible and dilemmas could be shared without fear.

CEO mentors added depth, offering the wisdom of lived experience and the kind of challenge that sharpens judgment. The result was personal renewal: leaders left with greater confidence, perspective, and the reassurance that they did not have to carry everything alone.

“I viewed MAT leadership as somewhat isolated, with limited opportunities for collaboration beyond one’s own organisation. However, the professional generosity and openness I encountered—both formally through the programme and informally through peer networks—have completely transformed this perception.”

System leadership: from organisations to systems

The challenges facing CEOs, such as how best to manage attendance and safeguarding, support SEND, and maintain financial resilience, do not confine themselves to individual trusts. Instead, they are woven into the fabric of the entire system. Addressing them requires leaders who can think and act collectively.

Through immersive visits (we call these immersions), fellows experienced the unvarnished reality of leadership in other contexts: not neat case studies, but authentic exposure to the dilemmas and trade-offs of running a trust. They saw how codified approaches had been embedded at scale, and how these ideas could translate across settings.

“[they] provided a multifaceted exploration of educational leadership at scale, offering profound insights into high leverage practices, leadership structures, and organisational cultures”

Working closely with peers and mentors from other trusts widened their perspective. Fellows began to see themselves not just as guardians of their own trusts, but as stewards of the sector as a whole.

Importantly, they also recognised that when leaders develop and sometimes move on, it strengthens the system. PD for CEOs is an investment in collective capacity, not organisational self-interest.

“I now see my role not just as a leader of schools, but as a leader of leaders; someone who creates the conditions for others to thrive, innovate, and lead with purpose.”

Strategic foresight: beyond short-term survival to long-term impact

Too often, CEOs are consumed by operational firefighting. The collaborative problem-solving throughout the programme helped leaders reclaim the horizon and balance strategic investment for the future with their trust’s immediate logistical needs.

Through structured study, coaching, and peer challenge, they shifted their primary focus from the urgent to the strategic.

Fellows spoke of re-engaging more purposefully with their Chairs, developing stronger leadership pipelines, and having the courage to make difficult long-term decisions with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for the children who need it most.

“The learning I’ve gained through this programme has had a direct and meaningful impact on the strategic direction and culture of our trust. It has enabled me to lead with greater transparency and purpose, embedding more strategic thinking across the central team and wider leadership structures.”

A deliberately designed curriculum

Underpinning the programme is a carefully constructed curriculum, shaped by expert contributors from across the trust sector and grounded in the Department for Education (DfE) Multi Academy Trust (MAT) CEO Content Framework.

The curriculum begins by establishing foundational understanding: how trusts operate as complex organisations, how governance structures balance oversight and autonomy, and how culture and strategy evolve as trusts grow. These early modules secure the conceptual foundations of effective trust leadership, illustrating how this has been done successfully in different contexts.

As the programme develops, fellows deepen their understanding of governance, culture, communication and talent strategy, applying these principles to increasingly complex contexts. The sequence revisits and layers concepts over time, for example, exploring culture first as a trust-wide idea and later as a lived practice that underpins governance and improvement.

Later modules explore financial and operational strategy, people development and educational outcomes, integrating the ethical and strategic dimensions of system leadership. By this stage, fellows are synthesising learning across earlier themes, applying insight to their own trusts and testing their thinking through collaborative problem solving and executive coaching.

The design brings coherence, depth and rigour to the professional learning experience by sequencing the progression of knowledge, concepts and leadership practices. It ensures that learning is part of a cumulative, research-informed progression that deepens insight, strengthens leadership practice and prepares CEOs to lead complex, adaptive systems with clarity and purpose.

A necessity for the sector

Across all three dimensions, the message is clear. Professional development equips leaders with the tools they need to sustain themselves, steward the sector with integrity, and nurture the next generation of leadership. All with the aim of giving children the excellent education they deserve.

High-quality professional development for CEOs is not a luxury, but a necessity, and the future of our education system depends on it.