Two founding directors
Two founding directors wanted for a brand-new CIC explaining health research and clinical trials, in plain language, to the communities rarely included in them. No board experience needed: roots in those communities matter most. Shape an organisation from its very first board meeting.
At a glance
- Two roles. You would join our founder on a three-person board.
- Four evening board meetings a year, around two hours each, online or in person in East London, arranged around work, family and prayer times.
- Two to three hours in a typical month, including reading. Slightly busier in the first few months while a new organisation adopts its first policies.
- Unpaid, with full induction provided, and honoraria intended as we grow.
- Applications close 30 September 2026. We aim to appoint by the end of September, with induction through October and the first full board meeting in the second half of October.
What you would be doing
You would be one of two independent directors joining our founder on a three-person board, at the very beginning. The company was registered in August 2026 and its first free community sessions run this autumn. These are founding seats. The people who take them will shape everything: our first policies, our first funded programmes, and the standards we hold ourselves to.
The board's job over the next year is concrete. Approve our safeguarding, expenses and conflict of interest policies. Oversee our first grant funding and sign off our small grants applications. Review the evidence from our pilot sessions and decide what changes. And govern our independence: our founder also runs a separate commercial company in health research, and the independent directors approve or refuse any dealings between the two organisations. We designed the role this way deliberately. We need people willing to say no to the person who appointed them.
There is a bigger job behind the yearly one. We are building towards a board where most seats belong to people from the communities we serve, and company membership is open to the local people we train and pay to run our sessions. As a founding director you would help design that: how members get a real say, how community voices reach the boardroom, and how an organisation built by one person becomes one owned by many.
What we are looking for
We are looking for people, not CVs, and two things matter far more than everything else.
Lived experience of the communities health research misses
You are from, or deeply rooted in, an ethnic minority community, a low-income community, or the disabled community, ideally in East London, and you know first-hand how the health system treats people like yours. This is the qualification. Our whole model is that the explaining must belong to the communities themselves, and that has to start in the boardroom.
The willingness to challenge
Our independent directors exist to hold the founder to account, including saying no to him. We need people who ask the awkward question, read the thing properly before agreeing to it, and are comfortable being the voice in the room that says "hold on".
You do not need board experience, governance knowledge, a health or science background, or any formal qualifications. First-time trustees are genuinely welcome: we provide full induction, and we will support you into the role properly.
Beyond those two essentials, any of the following would be useful to us, and none is required:
- Community organising or grassroots leadership
- Health, social care or public health
- Education or training
- Safeguarding
- Finance or bookkeeping
- Charity, CIC or public-sector governance
- Languages spoken in our communities, especially Bengali or Sylheti, Urdu, Arabic, Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi or Somali
If you have read this far and recognise yourself, but something is making you hesitate ("I've never been on a board", "I'm not a professional"), please apply anyway. You are exactly who this advert is for.
What difference will you make?
These two appointments change what Counted Health CIC is able to do, immediately and directly.
The practical impact comes first. National Lottery Awards for All, our most important early funding route, requires two unrelated directors before we can even apply. Your appointment unlocks an application worth up to £20,000, which would fund a year of free community sessions, translation into four community languages, and training stipends for our first local ambassadors. It is rare for a trustee role to have an effect this concrete: joining the board is the step that makes our next stage fundable.
The deeper impact is on trust, which is the whole organisation. Our promise to communities is that nobody can pay us to recruit them into studies and that we hold no data about anyone. Promises like that are only believable if someone independent enforces them. That is you. The independent directors approve every policy, every funded programme and every commercial term, and specifically approve or refuse any dealings with the founder's separate commercial company. When a community member asks "why should we believe you?", the honest answer includes "because our board makes it so." You would not be overseeing the mission from a distance; you would be the mechanism that makes the mission credible.
And there is a founding-moment impact that never comes again. This board's first year sets the pattern: how community members become company members with a real say, how we measure our work honestly and publish what fails, and how an organisation built by one person becomes one owned by the communities it serves. The medicines of the next decade will be tested on somebody. Whether our communities understand what they are being asked to join, and take part on their own terms, is the difference this role exists to make.
Before you apply
In your application, a few lines on three things:
- Your connection to the communities we serve.
- Which of the skills above you bring, and where you earned them. Boardrooms not required: running a community group's money, or safeguarding in a school, counts fully.
- One example of a time you challenged a decision or said the awkward thing.
No cover letter needed, and your CV matters less than your answers.
The process
We review applications as they arrive, and we will respond to everyone within a week of applying. Shortlisted applicants are invited to an informal thirty-minute conversation with our founder, held in the evening, online or in person in East London, during late September. It is a two-way conversation: expect honest answers about where the organisation really is, and please bring your hardest questions. Second conversations, where useful, happen the following week.
If you are unsure whether to apply, apply. Or send us your question first: chat@countedhealth.org. We would genuinely rather answer a doubt than lose the right person to it.
About Counted Health CIC
Counted Health CIC explains health research and clinical trials, in plain language, to the communities rarely included in them: ethnic minority communities, people on low incomes, and disabled people. It is a community interest company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, company number 17425338, incorporated August 2026. It is regulated by the CIC Regulator and its assets are locked to its community purpose by law. Its named asset-locked body is South Asian Health Action, registered charity 1171789. It is not a registered charity and does not seek public donations.
Registered office: 4th Floor, Silverstream House, 45 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 6EB.
This role is also listed on Reach Volunteering, opportunity reference 1331601.