Anthony Watson

As CEO of ESCROWSURE, Anthony leads a team dedicated to safeguarding operational resilience and business continuity in an era where organisations are increasingly reliant on business-critical third-party and internally developed software. Since joining the company in 2022, Anthony has brought a strategic lens shaped by engineering innovation into the landscape of executive-level risk consultancy, combined with deep domain knowledge in regulated industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare and education.

Anthony was drawn to ESCROWSURE by its singular commitment to solving a universal and growing challenge: how to mitigate software dependency risk in an outsourced, disruptive tech global economy. What has kept him committed is the company’s unwavering focus on certified ISO standards, technical product development, and client trust. Under his leadership, ESCROWSURE has evolved from a contractual safeguard service to a client-centric consultative partner offering verification testing, regulatory alignment tools, tailored escrow agreements, and IT risk management enablement.

At the helm, Anthony sets strategic direction while remaining actively engaged with ESCROWSURE’s enterprise clients, ranging from fintech and software vendors to large financial institutions. His expertise includes guiding firms through compliance with regulatory mandates such as South Africa’s Joint Standards for IT Governance and Risk Management, Cyber Resilience and security protocols, and positioning software escrow as a critical component in broader business continuity for IT, and procurement frameworks. His engineering background enables a structured, systems-oriented approach to running the business, with an emphasis on insightful data analytics, software assurance, and resilience-by-design. He has championed the use of escrow not merely as a risk mitigation tool, but as a strategic enabler, particularly within procurement workflows, vendor due diligence, and regulatory requirements for critical IP.

Under Anthony’s leadership, ESCROWSURE now serves a wide spectrum of clients—from central banks to listed corporates and scale-up software vendors – providing tailored escrow solutions that align with global standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 and DORA. His vision positions ESCROWSURE at the forefront of a movement that views escrow not as a legal obligation, but as a steadfast pillar of IT operational continuity. He is an active contributor to conversations on cybersecurity, governance, and the intersection of resilience with digital transformation. He believes the future of escrow lies in its ability to embed confidence at the heart of software relationships—accelerating trust, strengthening ecosystems, and de-risking innovation at scale.