Chris Seaton has 38 years of leadership experience in the charity sector, including 24 years working in school governance and leadership roles. Chris brings a passion for social transformation delivered through organisations that have a strong values base, are expertly led and put a premium on healthy positive relationships. Chris is a founding consultant with 3A Consulting, a small network of former school trust leaders working nationally to support schools and school trusts at a system level. In this role, Chris has recently worked on two merger projects, one as an interim CEO and the other as a project manager. He has also conducted a local authority-wide research project to support the authority’s developing plan for academisation. Chris also works as a facilitator and as a leadership coach with NPQ lead providers and with a medium sized school trust in the south-east. Previously, Chris was a founding member, trustee and the CEO of Schoolsworks Academy Trust in West Sussex. Under his leadership, the trust enjoyed 11 consecutive Ofsted ‘Good’ judgements, grew from one to eight primary sector schools, was successful in a free school application and saw a sponsor project turnaround from Inadequate to Good during Covid years. He led the change management to a centralised trust team and Schoolsworks enjoys excellent staff morale and retention. Chris is a qualified solicitor and in addition to his professional roles, he is a member of a primary phase school trust in Surrey and a non-executive trustee of a primary phase school trust in Southampton.