Lessons in Leadership

🏷️ From £45
🎧 Leaders
📍 Kingswood School
🥂 Refreshments served

Lessons in Leadership is a programme to support boarding school leaders as part of BSA’s new Centre for Boarding Leadership (CBL).

The Lessons in Leadership programme comprises lectures from highly distinguished leaders in different fields, including boarding alumni or people connected with boarding schools. These in-person Leadership events will be held at CBL partner BSA member schools in different parts of the UK. Typical Lessons in Leadership events will be for around a dozen delegates. 

Date: Wednesday October 14, 2026

Timings: 18:00 – 21:00

Venue: Kingswood School, Lansdown Road, Bath, BA1 5RG

A drinks reception will be hosted.

Session Topic: Leadership Principles in a state of constant change, with Phil de Glanville

In an interactive session, Phil, Robin and Andrew will explore how to stay true to leadership principles when change is battering you from all sides. Bringing some of his elite sporting experiences, Phil will also lean on 30 years in both commercial and public sector leadership roles, to outline some key tenets of leadership practices.

Guest Speaker:

Phil de Glanville, Former England Rugby Captain and Director, Hanover Fox UK

Phil de Glanville has built a career spanning elite sport, the commercial sector, public service, education, and executive search. He was educated at Bryanston School, Durham University (Politics and Economics), and Oxford University.

A former England rugby international, Phil won 38 caps and captained England during the 1996 season. He was a regular member of the national squad from 1992 to the 1999 Rugby World Cup, featuring in more than 60 matchday squads. At Bath Rugby, he made over 200 appearances across 12 years, captaining the club for an unprecedented five years and helping secure three league-and-cup doubles as well as the 1998 European Cup. He also represented the Barbarians.

While rugby remained an amateur sport, Phil worked in sales and marketing for Cow & Gate Nutricia (now part of Danone). In 1996, he joined international IT consultancy Xansa and balanced his professional and rugby careers until retiring from the game in 2001, when he returned full-time to Xansa in a partnership development role with SAP.

Phil then spent nine years at Sport England in development and relationship management roles, including responsibility for managing investment into five National Governing Bodies of Sport. In 2012, he joined Hartpury College and University as Director of Elite Sport, leading a team of 30 coaches and support staff across eight sports.

For more than 10 years, Phil has worked in executive search with Hanover Fox UK, specialising in Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, and the Not-for-Profit sector. Based in Bath and London, he became one of the firm’s three co-owners in 2018.

Phil lives in Bath with his wife and three sons. He completed a six-year term as a Rugby Football Union Board member in 2024 and is currently President of the Students RFU.

Hosts:

Robin Fletcher, Chief Executive

Robin Fletcher is CEO of Abitas Group, comprising BAISIS (British Association of Independent Schools with International Students), BSA (Boarding Schools’ Association), BSA Legal, HIEDA (Health in Education Association) SACPA (Safeguarding and Child Protection Association) and TIOB (The Institute of Boarding). A former journalist, editor and communications director, Robin is a non-executive director of the manufacturers’ trade body Make UK, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Andrew Gordon-Brown, Headmaster and Principal, Kingswood School, Bath, UK

Andrew joined Kingswood in September 2020 as Headmaster and Principal of the Foundation. He moved to Bath from Cornwall where he spent seven years as Headmaster of Truro School, having previously been Deputy Headmaster at Stonyhurst College and at Radley College where he began his school career and qualified as a teacher.

Andrew studied at Hyde Park High School in Johannesburg, the University of Cape Town and later Keble College, Oxford.  He is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Prior to his career switch, Andrew enjoyed a 12 year career in banking and finance, as well as rowing for South Africa at the 1992 Olympics and for Oxford in the 1994 Boat Race. This has allowed him to bring life lessons from a variety of experiences to his teaching career, including the importance of working as a team. Andrew is particularly committed to empowering others to be the best they can.

Married with three children, Andrew is both a sportsman and a music lover.

Click here to book your place