A register tells you who sits on one board. The Governance Register connects them - so you can start with any person or organisation and follow the boards they share, the people they have served alongside, and the shortest path between any two of them.
Built from public records, nation by nation, and held to one standard. The connected record is fullest in the UK, where companies, charities and public bodies join up; each edition adds who governs today, with the connections following as each country's register allows.
Coverage
Every board member named in a national public register, held to one standard.
The record, by register
What it is actually built from. Every row is one public register.
| No. | Register | Relative to the largest | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| Companies House | |||
| 1 | Company officer appointments | 18,729,588 | |
| 2 | Ownership records (PSC) | 15,683,709 | |
| Charity and nonprofit regulators | |||
| 3 | US board-member records (IRS Form 990) | 4,979,148 | |
| 4 | Canadian director records (CRA T3010) | 4,580,460 | |
| 5 | UK charity trustee records | 921,796 | |
| 6 | NZ officer records (Charities Services) | 581,428 | |
| 7 | Irish trustee appointments | 79,622 | |
| Company and securities regulators | |||
| 8 | US public-company roles (SEC) | 466,179 | |
| Public bodies, schools and legislatures | |||
| 9 | UK school governor terms | 240,751 | |
| 10 | Legislature memberships, 5 countries | 66,469 | |
| 11 | Ontario public appointments | 3,332 | |
| 12 | Irish state board appointments | 2,047 | |
The connections
A register of people is only half of it. The other half is who they govern alongside.
The editions
Each edition maps who governs in one country, and links straight into its national register.
Every country's public record allows something different, so each edition has its own edge: the United Kingdom joins companies, charities and public bodies into one connected map you can traverse; Ireland, New Zealand and Canada publish regulator-filed appointment dates, so tenure there is a reported fact, not an inference; the United States adds observed board turnover and SEC-listed company boards. Counts are stated in each register's own units - never added together, and no country ranked above another.
United Kingdom
- The connected record - the boards people share, and the shortest warm path between any two people
- Renewal signals - the seats likely to open, read from the filing record
- Pro - the free workspace for board and executive search
United States
- Who governs - directors and trustees exactly as filed, kept apart from staff
- Which boards are turning over - observed tenure and departures, never a filed date
- Public-company boards - directors and officers under SEC identifiers
Ireland
- Filed dates, not inference - tenure as a reported fact
- Boards due to change - approach lists from tenure, chairs and cohorts
- Two registers, reconciled - charity entries checked against company status
New Zealand
- Filed start and end dates - genuine tenure and real, dated departures
- Who has left, and when - observed turnover, not inferred
- Approach lists - boards due to change, from the filed record
Canada
- Named directors and trustees - as filed to the Canada Revenue Agency
- Service spans - appointment and departure dates from annual returns
- Approach lists - boards due to change, from the filed record
Australia
- The register and its status - every ACNC charity, and whether it is registered
- Board members - published by the ACNC on each charity’s own record, not in bulk
- An honest edition - it maps the register - not yet the boards
The standard behind every edition
The same standard everywhere, whatever the local record allows.
Every fact in every edition traces back to an official public record - and nothing else: no AI-generated records, no self-declared profiles, no inference dressed up as fact. If a board date is not in the public filing, we do not invent one. That is the straightforward half. The hard half - resolving the same person across registers and borders to one identity, and mapping the board connections no single register holds - is the work, and it is ours. Who governs each organisation, exactly as filed, is free in every edition. The approach and renewal analysis that points to the boards most likely to change is the free Pro layer; we show the kinds of evidence behind it, never the formula.
Every company and charity board in Britain, connected. 5,689,368 companies. 170,397 charities. One record.
Try: Martin Paisner · Sherry Coutu · British Red Cross
One connected record across Britain's charities, companies and public bodies
Start with a person or an organisation, then follow the board connections no single register can show you.
Who governs
Profiles of the trustees, directors and board members behind UK charities, companies and public bodies.
How they connect
The boards people share, and the shortest warm path between any two people or organisations.
What a board needs
Board DNA maps each board's make-up and experience - and flags the gaps worth watching.
What happens next
See which board seats are likely to open, and the kind of person who could fill them.
Coverage
Every officer, trustee and owner named in the public registers, resolved to one identity and held to one standard. Public-body coverage is early - 421 bodies from the Cabinet Office directory.
The record, by register
| No. | Register | Relative to the largest register | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| Companies House | |||
| 1 | Company officer appointments | 18,729,588 | |
| 2 | Ownership records (PSC) | 15,886,719 | |
| 3 | Companies | 5,689,368 | |
| Charity Commission | |||
| 4 | Charity trustee records | 833,153 | |
| 5 | Registered charities | 170,397 | |
The human connections
A register of people is only half of it. The other half is who they govern alongside - the board connections the public registers never join up.
The organisation connections
The registers stop at the edge of each organisation. We map where their boards overlap - charities that share a trustee, and the people who govern across a charity and a company.
How it is built
Every record is compiled from the public registers, matched to one identity per person, and refreshed to each register's own cadence - Companies House via its change streams as filings land, the Charity Commission weekly. Deterministic - no AI-generated records, no self-declared data, nothing from LinkedIn.
- iCharity Commission Register of Charities, reloaded in full each week.
- iiCompanies House: the full officer and PSC (persons with significant control) record, plus the real-time change streams.
- iiiThe Cabinet Office directory of public bodies.
1,244,660 charity annual-return records · 421 public bodies · all in one record.
Find your client's next chair, trustee or board member
The register is free to search, and Pro is free to use. Create an account and it opens: candidates ranked by cause and seniority, the warm route to reach each one, the comparable organisations worth watching, and the seats likely to open before they are advertised.
Coming vacancies
The boards likely to have a seat to fill next, read from the filing record.
Ranked candidates
Board and executive people ranked by cause, seniority and reach - a longlist on day one, not week three.
Warm paths
The shortest board-to-board route from a person you name to any candidate.
Where they fit
Match candidates to the skills and experience each board is missing.
Peer organisations
Find comparable organisations by cause, size and finances - and the trustees and directors who govern them.
The whole officer record
Every director and secretary filed at Companies House, not only charity boards. An executive appears where they hold a directorship - the register does not name staff below the board, and we do not guess.
Built on 832,980 charity trustee records, 18,729,588 officer appointment records and 63,127 trustee records that sit on more than one charity board. See a live path ->
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