National children’s services leader Sir Alan Wood joins Right to Succeed as Chair
Right to Succeed has appointed Sir Alan Wood as Chair of its Board of Trustees, bringing national leadership experience across children’s services, education, safeguarding and public service reform to the place-based change charity. He succeeds Suzanne McCarthy who reached her maximum six year term with the charity in October.
Sir Alan Wood is one of England’s most experienced leaders in education and children’s services. For more than four decades, he has led the transformation of these services in some of the country’s most challenging communities, advised governments, chaired national organisations, and undertaken major reviews that have helped shape national policy and legislation.
A qualified teacher with a specialism in behaviour, Sir Alan’s previous roles include: Chair of the Department for Education Advisory Board on Local Authority Children’s Services; Chief Executive of The Learning Trust; Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services in Hackney; President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services; and Ofsted board member.
He has also held significant board-level and chairing roles across children’s services and social care, including with the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the Youth Custody Improvement Board, bringing extensive experience of supporting organisational growth while offering genuine challenge and support to senior leaders.
With Sir Alan as Chair, Right to Succeed will move closer to its 2029 goals, which include increasing the number of communities it currently works with from 12 to 25, broadening its range of place-based programmes, and growing its network of local partners that it supports to more than 500.
Sir Alan was awarded a knighthood in 2018 for services to social care and education. He will take up his new post as Chair of Right to Succeed’s Board of Trustees in mid-October 2026.
Speaking about his new position, Sir Alan Wood said:
“This role speaks directly to what I have spent my career trying to do - giving children facing disadvantage a genuinely better chance.
“Right to Succeed’s approach echoes the decade-long work I was part of in Hackney - sustained, multi-agency, community-embedded working that builds trust with schools and families over years, aligns local partners around shared data and shared ambition, and refuses to let short-term pressures displace long-term purpose.
“Right to Succeed’s goals are ambitious in exactly the right way. I have navigated this kind of purposeful growth before, and I know how important it is to keep a board’s attention on the long-term mission when the pressures of scaling create constant temptation to drift. That is a discipline I can bring.”
Graeme Duncan, CEO of Right to Succeed, said:
“We are delighted to welcome Sir Alan Wood as Chair of Right to Succeed’s Board of Trustees and excited by the role he can play in taking our charity forward over the coming years. He has been at the forefront of some of the bravest innovations in education and social care for decades, and has been a fierce champion for communities, children, young people and families throughout his career. We are very fortunate to have him joining us.”
During Suzanne McCarthy’s tenure, Right to Succeed's income and expenditure has grown five fold, enabling place-based programmes to expand to new regions, such as the West Midlands.
Graeme added:
“Suzanne has been an outstanding Chair for Right to Succeed and a huge support to me over the past six years. She has brought energy, time and deep expertise to strengthening the governance of the charity, and has helped guide Right to Succeed through a period of significant growth.
“We are extremely grateful for her humble leadership, her commitment to the charity, and the role she has played in helping Right to Succeed scale its work and impact.”
Right to Succeed will build on the foundations laid during Suzanne McCarthy’s tenure as it supports new place-based programmes in the West Midlands and Liverpool City Region, while other communities move into their first year of Delivery and Resilience.
Ends.
Editor’s notes:
For press enquiries, please contact: chelseayearsley@righttosucceed.org.uk
