Family Legacy Monitor – Corporate Legacy Story Interview Series: Sir James Wates CBE

The Wates Legacy Story: Building A Business Worth Inheriting

Sir James Wates CBE, has spent much of his career preparing for a moment that he hopes will pass almost unnoticed. Over two decades he has helped guide one of Britain’s oldest family businesses through the transition from the third to the fourth generation. Today, the family’s attention has already shifted once again, not to their own generation, but to the one beyond it. Sitting down with Professor Andrea Calabrò in London, he reflects on ownership, responsibility and the single question that has quietly shaped every decision the family has made: not how to grow the business, but how to ensure it remains worthy of being inherited.

This article is part of the ‘What Do You Want to Be Remembered For?’ campaign at the JTC Private Office-SDA Bocconi School of Management Family Legacy Monitor, a research initiative collecting legacy stories from family businesses and entrepreneurial families. The campaign explores values, identity, and the transmission of responsibility across generations. Interview conducted by Professor Andrea Calabrò, March 2026. Additional research drawn from public company records, The Wates Group official history, and industry sources.

Origins: More Than a Construction Company

Legacy is not something you just leave behind. It is something you begin designing long before you are ready to let go. James understands this better than most. When we ask him what legacy means, he does not begin by talking about buildings, turnover or market share. He reflects instead on responsibility, a word he returns to throughout our conversation with quiet but unmistakable insistence. “There was a time,” he says, “when the priority was simply to make money and grow the business.” That was the challenge his predecessors faced. Their task was to build. His generation inherited a different challenge: to ensure that what had been built remained worthy of being inherited. The distinction may appear subtle. But it fundamentally changes the way a family thinks about ownership, governance and the future.

To understand why this philosophy emerged, one must go back almost 130 years, to a small London building company founded by a man who could never have imagined that five generations later his descendants would still be debating the same question: what, exactly, are we trying to leave behind?

The Wates story began in 1897, when Edward Wates established a modest building business in Streatham, South London. Britain was entering a period of rapid urban expansion. New housing estates were appearing across the capital, infrastructure was developing quickly, and demand for skilled builders was growing. Like many entrepreneurial ventures of the late Victorian era, the business was founded on craftsmanship, hard work and reputation rather than financial capital.

Over the decades that followed, the company expanded, survived two World Wars, economic recessions and changes in Britain’s construction industry. Each generation inherited a business that looked different from the one before it, adapting continuously to new markets, technologies and customer needs while remaining privately owned by the family.

Today, the Wates Group is one of the United Kingdom’s largest privately owned construction, development and property services companies, employing around 6,000 people and operating exclusively within the UK. Its activities now span construction, engineering, property development, facilities management and investment, supported by governance structures designed to balance entrepreneurial flexibility with long-term continuity.

“What, exactly, are we trying to leave behind?”

— James Wates

Yet James is quick to point out that size was never the family’s ultimate ambition. Construction, he observes, is a cyclical industry with relatively modest margins. Simply becoming bigger would never guarantee continuity. Growth without adaptation could eventually threaten family ownership itself. This realisation shaped one of the most important shifts in the family’s thinking. Rather than asking how to build a larger construction company, successive generations began asking a different question: how do we build a family enterprise that future generations will still want, and be able, to own? The question was no longer how to grow the company. It was how to prepare it for people who had not yet arrived.

The Question That Changed Everything

There are moments in the life of a family business that appear insignificant at the time, yet later come to define an entire generation. For the Wates family, one of those moments took place around fifteen years ago. There was no acquisition to celebrate, no succession announcement, no strategic crisis demanding immediate action. Instead, the family did something unexpectedly simple. They sat together in front of a camera and asked themselves a single question: what do we want the next generation to inherit?

James smiles as he remembers the conversation. Looking back, he believes the family probably did not fully realise how important that exercise would become. At the time, it was simply an opportunity to reflect. Today, he sees it as the moment when the family’s understanding of legacy fundamentally changed. The answers were revealing. No one spoke first about revenue, market share or shareholder value. There was no discussion about becoming the largest construction company in Britain or dominating new markets. Instead, the family spoke about resilience. They wanted to leave behind a business that was robust enough to withstand uncertainty, adaptable to evolve with changing times, and sustainable to remain relevant long after they were gone. While it was a modest ambition, it demanded discipline. Because leaving behind a business capable of surviving another century requires a very different mindset from simply growing one.

James reflects on this suggesting that the real challenge was ensuring that the business remained capable of adapting long after his own generation had stepped aside. This influenced almost every important decision the family made. Diversification was no longer just a financial strategy. Governance was no longer simply about avoiding conflict. Ownership structures were no longer designed only to allocate shares. Even conversations with younger family members acquired a different purpose. Each decision began to answer the same question: will this make the family enterprise stronger for the generation that follows us?

“To be successful, you have to keep adapting.”

— James Wates

Listening to James, one notices that nothing appears accidental. The Family Office was created before liquidity became a pressing issue. The shareholders’ agreement was revised before ownership complexity became unmanageable. The family constitution continues to evolve before it becomes outdated. The Family Assembly brings younger family members together with the current generation years before they face leadership responsibilities. Even philanthropy was institutionalised decades ago, becoming part of the family’s identity rather than an afterthought of commercial success. None of these initiatives emerged as reactions to crisis. They were designed in anticipation of the future.

James never presents this as a grand theory. He talks about practical decisions, family conversations and gradual evolution. Yet taken together, those decisions reveal a distinctive philosophy. Many families think about legacy only when succession approaches. The Wates family has spent decades quietly designing it. Legacy, James realised, does not simply happen. It has to be intentionally designed.

Designing The Enterprise

If the Wates family had concluded that legacy could not simply be inherited, the next question became unavoidable: where do you begin? For James’ generation, the answer was pragmatic. You begin by accepting that the business your grandparents built may not be the business your grandchildren will inherit. That idea sounds obvious today, yet for many long-established family firms it remains uncomfortable. There is a natural temptation to preserve what earlier generations created, to protect the company’s identity by keeping it as close as possible to its original form. James sees things differently. Throughout its history, the Wates family has never confused continuity with permanence. What has remained constant is not the organisational structure, the portfolio of activities or even the industry itself. What has remained constant is the family’s willingness to rethink how best to protect its future.

Construction, James admits openly, is a difficult business. Margins are tight. Economic cycles are unpredictable. Political priorities shift. Major projects require patience, capital and resilience, often delivering returns only after many years. Relying exclusively on a single operating business, however successful, would eventually expose future generations to unnecessary risk. The family therefore began asking a different question. They began asking how to build a family enterprise capable of surviving changes that could not yet be anticipated. A construction company builds projects. A family enterprise builds options.

Over time, this thinking reshapes the organisation itself. The operating businesses remain the family’s economic engine, but gradually they become only one component of a much broader architecture. New investment activities are developed. Governance structures become more sophisticated. Ownership arrangements evolve. Eventually, the family will establish a Family Investment Company, a platform through which wealth can continue to grow beyond the operating business itself.

“Governance must protect opportunities as much as regulate rights.”

— James Wates

James describes the Family Investment Company not as a departure from the family’s heritage but as another way of protecting it. Families change. Interests diversify. Future generations rarely follow identical professional paths. Expecting every family member to remain emotionally and financially tied to a single operating company is unrealistic. Instead of resisting this reality, the Wates family choose to embrace it. The Family Investment Company creates flexibility. Family members can pursue different interests while remaining connected to the broader family enterprise. New opportunities can be explored without additional pressure on the operating businesses. Risk can be diversified without diluting family ownership.

Perhaps the most important shift was recognising that owning the family enterprise is not the same as working in the operating businesses. Many business families blur these two roles. As a result, younger generations often feel they must join the company simply because that is where the family’s wealth is created. Others remain even when their interests and talents lie elsewhere. In the long run, both situations can create frustration, for individuals and for the business.

James has worked hard to avoid that trap. His eldest son offers the best example. Having spent more than a decade in the United States building a successful real estate career, he will eventually return to contribute to the family enterprise. Yet James has no intention of asking him to abandon everything he has built overseas. Those relationships, entrepreneurial experiences and external perspectives will strengthen the family business rather than compete with it.

Professional management has become an equally essential part of the governance architecture. As the company diversified, attracting outstanding non-family executives became more important. Designing incentive systems capable of retaining them has become one of the family’s most significant ongoing governance challenges. In James’s telling, succession planning has ceased to be simply a question of who from the family comes next. It has become a question of how to build an organisation that talented people, family and non-family alike, want to lead.

Looking back, these decisions all point in the same direction. Diversification, new investments, professional managers and more flexible ownership were never reactions to a crisis. They were ways of preparing the business for whatever the future might bring. The family wasn’t thinking about today’s business, they were making sure future generations would have more options than their own.

Designing The Family

If designing the enterprise was about creating options, designing the family was about something different. It was about creating commitment. One of the greatest misconceptions surrounding family businesses is that continuity depends on convincing the next generation to join. James has never believed that. “We don’t push them,” he explains. “The business attracts them.”

Those few words perhaps reveal more about the Wates philosophy than any governance document ever could. Because attraction cannot be engineered through rules. It has to be earned.

That is why the family has consciously created space for younger generations to develop their own identities before deciding how they wish to contribute. His eldest son’s journey in the United States is not an exception to this philosophy. It is its clearest expression. When he eventually becomes more involved with the family enterprise, he will bring something no internal career could ever have provided: a different perspective. The family will not simply gain another executive. It will gain another entrepreneur. That distinction matters enormously.

Throughout history, many successful family businesses have unintentionally created generations of excellent managers but relatively few entrepreneurs. Their successors learn to protect existing organisations but rarely acquire the confidence to create something entirely new. James hopes for something different. He wants future generations to arrive not as custodians of inherited wealth, but as individuals capable of creating new value. The enterprise should become a place where ambition continues to grow.

“The business attracts them. They are not pushed towards it.”

— James Wates

This philosophy extends well beyond his own children. Twice each year, members of the younger generation come together through the Family Assembly. These meetings are not board meetings in miniature. Nor are they succession workshops. They are conversations about ownership, about responsibility, about family, about the future.

James describes the format almost casually, yet it reflects wisdom. The youngest generation speaks first, encouraged to say it as they see it with no fear, only then do the older generation contribute so that they don’t ‘shape’ the conversation – a good open debate then ensues. It is a beautiful ritual. Respect flows from experience. Energy flows from youth. Neither dominates the other. Listening becomes as important as speaking. In most organisations, authority belongs to those who currently hold power. Within the Wates family, authority is shared with those who hold memory.

Nevertheless, the Wates family has not simply enjoyed harmonious conversations. Difficult decisions have been made. Conflicts have emerged. There have been debates over acquisitions, diversification and strategic direction. Moments when different visions for the future collided.

James recalls one particularly painful episode involving a family leader whose personal ambitions gradually became intertwined with the business itself. Removing him was one of the hardest decisions the family ever had to make. James speaks about it without bitterness. But he also speaks about it without ambiguity. Sometimes, protecting the institution requires decisions that no one enjoys making. The lesson stayed with him. Strong families are not those that avoid disagreement. They are those that create enough trust to survive it. Trust, however, does not emerge automatically. It is built slowly, through family meetings, retreats, shared experiences and difficult conversations held before they become crises. Small investments in relationships that, over time, become the invisible infrastructure supporting every important decision.

Conversation is the mechanism through which continuity is built. Families that continue talking continue adapting. And families that continue adapting remain capable of building a future together.

Building Beyond The Business

As our conversation progresses, something becomes clear. For James Wates, legacy is not confined to the boundaries of the business. One gets the impression that he almost resists the idea that a family’s legacy should be measured solely by business success. Buildings matter. Projects matter. Financial performance matters. But they are not, he insists, the whole story. “They are only part of what we leave behind.”

This broader understanding of legacy has deep roots within the Wates family. Long before environmental, social and governance reporting became fashionable, the family had already begun asking a much simpler question: if our business helps shape society, what responsibility do we have towards that society? The answer became institutionalised. In 1966, James’ grandfather, together with his two brothers, established what would become the Wates Foundation. For almost six decades, successive generations of family trustees have sought to make a difference. In more recent times the family owners have committed up to five per cent of annual pre-tax profits to charitable activities through the WFET. It is an extraordinary commitment, not because of the amount itself, although few family businesses have sustained such generosity over so many decades, but because of what it represents. The Foundation was never something the family created after becoming successful. From the beginning, giving back was part of what success meant. While many companies think about philanthropy after creating wealth, the Wates family has made it part of the way wealth is created and shared. Every year. Every generation.

James speaks about the Foundation and the WFET with the same pragmatism that characterises the rest of our conversation. There is little interest in celebrating charitable achievements. Instead, he talks about responsibility, about helping young people create opportunities, about improving housing and shelter, about strengthening local communities, about sustainability. The four priorities appear different on the surface, yet they all share a common thread. Each seeks to leave the world slightly better than it was found.

Perhaps this is not surprising for a family whose entire history has been spent constructing places where people live, work and build their own lives. The connection between business and purpose feels entirely natural. “We build for society,” James says. It is an uncomplicated sentence. Yet it reframes the identity of the business. The Wates Group is not simply a construction company. It is an organisation whose work quite literally shapes the physical environment within which communities develop.

“We build for society.”

— James Wates

James hopes the company will increasingly become recognised not only for the projects it delivers, but for the ideas it contributes. He speaks about thought leadership as another form of construction. Ideas, after all, also build. They shape industries. They influence behavior. They leave traces long after individual projects have been completed.

Listening to James, one realises that intentional legacy is not simply about designing structures that allow a business to survive. It is also about designing a purpose that future generations will still find worth serving. Because businesses can survive without inspiring people. Families cannot. Meaning is what encourages younger generations to stay engaged. Meaning transforms ownership from a financial privilege into a personal responsibility. Meaning allows every generation to understand that they are participating in something larger than themselves.

What He Does Not Want

As our conversation draws to a close, we realise that we discussed governance, ownership, family, philanthropy, construction and the future. Yet, in many ways, none of these topics has really been the subject of our conversation. The interview has always been about something much more personal. It has been about responsibility.

There is therefore one final question that seems impossible not to ask. After everything you have built, after everything your generation has prepared, how would you like to be remembered?

James pauses. Not because he is searching for an answer. Rather because the question itself deserves reflection. He speaks first about the family. He hopes that future generations will inherit not simply a successful business, but a family that still enjoys working together. A family capable of making difficult decisions without losing sight of one another. A family that continues contributing to society through its business, its philanthropy and the communities it serves.

He speaks then about the company. He hopes people will recognise that the Wates Group did more than deliver buildings. That helped shape places where people could live, work and thrive. That it became known not only for the quality of its projects but also for the quality of its relationships. He speaks also about society. He would like the business to continue being recognised as a responsible force for good. A company that takes sustainability seriously. A family that understands that business success carries obligations as well as opportunities.

Listening to James, one notices something. Throughout the interview he has almost never spoken about himself. The language is always collective. The family. The business. The next generation. It is rarely I. So, we ask him a different question. Not what he hopes to be remembered for. But what he hopes never to be remembered as. This time there is no pause.

“I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who bust the business.”

— James Wates

The sentence hangs in the room. It is remarkably understated. Most leaders of organisations this size speak about transformation, growth or extraordinary achievements. James speaks about preservation. At first, his answer sounds almost self-deprecating. But the more one reflects upon it, the more clear it becomes. He is not saying that his ambition is simply to avoid failure. He is saying something much deeper. Every generation inherits something it did not create. The true measure of leadership is whether that inheritance is stronger when it passes to the next generation. Not larger. Not more famous. Stronger.

That distinction captures the philosophy that has quietly run through our entire conversation. The Wates family has never confused legacy with success. Success belongs to a generation. Legacy belongs to generations.

Buildings eventually age. Markets change. Strategies evolve. Even ownership structures may one day look very different from those that exist today. But the habits a family develops, the conversations it continues having, the values it chooses to protect, the purpose it refuses to abandon, those are the things that ultimately endure.

As we leave the interview, we find ourselves thinking not about construction, governance or succession. We keep returning instead to the family video James described at the beginning of our conversation. A group of relatives asking themselves one simple question: what do we want the next generation to inherit?

Perhaps every entrepreneurial family should ask itself the same question. Not once. But repeatedly. Because the answer will inevitably change. Families evolve. Businesses evolve. The world evolves. Legacy, therefore, cannot simply be preserved. It must be intentionally redesigned by every generation. That, ultimately, is the Wates story. Not the story of a construction company that survived for more than a century. But the story of a family that understood that the greatest structures it would ever build were not made of brick, steel or concrete. They were built through conversations. Through choices. Through purpose. And through a quiet determination to leave the next generation with something genuinely worth inheriting.

Final Reflection

The Wates story does not end with a dramatic reinvention or a moment of crisis survived. It ends, for now, with a family reflecting about what comes next: revising constitutions, rethinking governance, welcoming a generation that has been given the freedom to arrive on its own terms.

That, perhaps, is the most important lesson the Wates case offers: legacy is not the residue of success. It is the product of intention. It has to be talked about, structured for, and consciously passed on, not once, at the end of a career, but continuously, across the entire duration of a family enterprise. Sir James Wates will not be remembered as the man who built the most. He will be remembered, if his own ambitions are met, as the man who made sure there was something left worth building on.