For non-execs, board advisors, chairs, interims and the boards that need them

The UK's board network, in one place.

30,000+ diligenced non-execs, board advisors, chairs, interims and fractional C-suite. One membership, three platforms: Membership, DealZone and HiringZone, covering the seat, the deal and the hire.

Excellent 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot
Private Equity· Venture Capital· Family Offices· AIM & Aquis· Corporate Finance· Founders· Professional Services· Fractional & Interim· Private Equity· Venture Capital· Family Offices· AIM & Aquis· Corporate Finance· Founders· Professional Services· Fractional & Interim·
Our members advise
KKR CVC Capital Partners Bain Capital BlackRock Inflexion Octopus Foresight Group YFM Equity Partners Sentinel Capital Partners Maven Capital Partners River Capital Pitalia Capital Cadro NatWest
Three platforms, one network

The seat, the deal, the hire.

One network, three platforms. Join as a member and the whole ecosystem is open to you: the board seats, the deal flow and the hiring bench. How much of it you use is up to you.

Board-level panel discussion Membership

Take your seat on a board

Non-exec, board advisor, chair, interim or fractional C-suite. A profile in front of the PE funds, VCs and family offices actively building boards, plus the events and community that keep you in the room.

  • Board vacancies, on and off market, matched to your remit
  • 26 NEDWorkin' sessions a year, plus dinners and roundtables
Audience at the Briars Group investor forum DealZone

See the deals before they surface

Off-market capital raises, business exits and buy-side mandates, shared quietly with investing directors rather than listed on the open market.

  • Around 400 off-market raises and exits circulated each year
  • For investing NEDs, professional services firms and founders
NED masterclass panel with Eversheds Sutherland HiringZone

Hire a Chair or NED in days

Post the brief, take one call, receive a shortlist of vetted board-level operators. One fixed fee agreed upfront, never a percentage of salary.

  • Shortlist in under five days from a bench of 30,000+
  • 80–90% below conventional executive search fees
Senior leaders at a VirtualNonExecs executive networking reception
The idea

One way in, then as much of the ecosystem as you want.

A NED looking for a seat, an investor looking for a deal and a board looking for a hire have always overlapped. Where any one member sits depends on where they are in building a portfolio.

So we stopped splitting them up. One membership, one profile, with all three platforms open from day one. How much of the ecosystem you connect across is down to your appetite for portfolio growth.

Why now

Boards are being built faster than they are being found.

Private capital, succession and regulatory pressure are all pulling in the same direction: more UK companies need board-grade judgement, and they need it sooner than a traditional search can deliver it.

01

Search is too slow and too expensive

A conventional retained search takes months and a percentage of salary. Most growth companies making their first board hire cannot justify either, so the hire simply does not happen.

02

Investors price governance directly

PE, VC and lenders now look at the board before the plan. A credible Chair on the cap table changes the terms of a raise, not just the tone of a meeting.

03

The best deals never reach the market

Capital raises and exits move through networks long before they reach a broker. Access to that flow is the difference between choosing a deal and being shown one.

04

A directory is not a network

Lists of names are everywhere. What is scarce is a diligenced community where the introduction actually happens, and where both sides show up because the quality holds.

Platform 01 · Membership

The community that gets you in the room.

Non-exec, board advisor, chair, interim or fractional C-suite. A profile built with a C-suite consultant and made discoverable to the private equity funds, venture funds and family offices building boards right now.

Then the part that actually moves careers: 26 NEDWorkin' sessions a year, dinners, roundtables and a hub of 30,000+ members who open doors for each other because that is the whole point of being here.

  • Live onboarding and a one-to-one profile consultation
  • Board vacancies and offsite opportunities matched to your remit
  • Non-Exec Monthly, AI CV tooling and member training
Members at a VirtualNonExecs private dining experience Private dining · Member events
Live right now

287 board seats are live, and some close this month.

Members see every brief in full: the client, the fee, the time commitment and the route in. Over 1,000 board roles have come through the board, and the shortlists for these 287 are being drawn now.

1,000+ roles posted 100,000+ board searches 100% of mandates filled

See all 287 briefs

Two minutes to join. Every brief unlocked straight after.

By continuing you agree to our terms of business.
Already a member? Sign in Browse the board first
Networker Pro

Know what the seat is worth. Then go and win it.

Networker Pro is the upgrade that does the work with you. A full CV and board profile review, rewritten by a senior strategist, plus the fee benchmarks so you never walk into a conversation guessing what the role should pay.

76%

of member interviews secured were supported by the Networker Pro package.

Based on interviews reported by VirtualNonExecs members.

01

Full CV review and rewrite

Your CV and board profile rebuilt line by line with a senior strategist, positioned for board work rather than an executive career. Typically valued at £1,200.

02

Profile built to be found

Optimised for the searches funds, chairs and headhunters actually run, so you surface for the mandates that fit your remit.

03

Fee benchmarks before you negotiate

What the seat pays across listed, AIM and private boards, so the fee conversation starts from evidence and not from a guess.

What a board seat pays

Typical annual base fees, 2026. Committee and Senior Independent Director premiums sit on top. Hover any row for the full range.

Non-executive director
FTSE 100
£105k
FTSE 250
£68k
Private & PE
£60k
AIM
£40k
Chair
FTSE 100
£600k
FTSE 250
£265k
Private & PE
£175k
AIM
£90k
Each panel is scaled to its own highest figure, so bars compare within a role and not across the two. Private and PE-backed fees frequently sit alongside equity. Sources: Exec Capital 2026 NED fee benchmarking, NEDonBoard, Spencer Stuart UK Board Index and Alvarez & Marsal.
Weekly · AI-driven NEDWorkin'

Tell it what you want. Meet up to 8 board contacts a week.

Weekly AI NEDWorkin' turns a plain-English brief into introductions. Describe the seat, the sector and the stage you are after, and the system works the network for you, delivering up to eight matched board contacts every week.

Your brief
Audit chair for a PE-backed SaaS business, £30m revenue
Matching 8 of 8 board contacts
01
Chair
PE-backed SaaS, Series C
Match
02
NED, Audit
FTSE 250, industrials
Match
03
Fractional CFO
Series B, exit track
Match
04
NED, Remco
AIM listed, consumer
Match
05
Board advisor
Family office portfolio
Match
06
Interim COO
Manufacturing, turnaround
Match
07
Chair
Healthcare, buy and build
Match
08
NED, Risk
Fintech, FCA regulated
Match

No trawling a directory and no waiting for the next event. The brief runs every week, so the introductions keep arriving while you get on with the day job.

Upgrade to Networker Pro
Cranfield University campus at dusk Cranfield University · Bedfordshire
Networker Pro · Cranfield School of Management

A NED programme built for our members.

The Non-Executive Directors' Programme, designed by Cranfield School of Management in conjunction with VirtualNonExecs. Eight modules and 25 byte-size lessons, online and self-paced, covering governance, board finance, board dynamics, effectiveness and search. Open to everyone, with a preferential rate for Networker Pro members.

Online and self-paced 8 modules · 25 lessons Networker Pro members save £500
Board strategy & dynamics
Lynette Ryals
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Cranfield University
Board strategy, board dynamics and the role of the chair.
Board effectiveness
Karen Walls
Consultant working with boards
Board effectiveness and the key skills of a non-executive director.
Finance
Steve Seymour
Professor of Practice in Accounting and Finance
Finance for non-executive directors.
Governance
Ian White
NED Programme Director
Governance, and the duties that come with the seat.
The effective NED
Olivia Sharpe
Partner, Executive Bridge Partners
What makes an effective NED, and when in your career to consider a board role.
Sustainability
Laura Adams
Head of Sustainability, Wolseley Group
Sustainability, and how a Chief Sustainability Officer works with the board.
Artificial intelligence
Monica Franco-Santos
Reader in Organisational Governance and Performance
AI for non-executive directors.
Built around your diary, not the other way round.

25 bite-size lessons, online and self-paced. The library unlocks in full and stays open, so you dip in and out around the day job and it waits for you when the week gets away.

Finish it and the market can see it.

A verified digital badge on completion for your LinkedIn profile and your CV, which also ranks you higher in VirtualNonExecs search results, in front of the funds, chairs and founders already looking for their next appointment.

Cranfield School of Management, UK Top 5 Business School, Financial Times European Business School 2025

Board-grade teaching from a UK top five business school, ranked 3rd in the UK for open executive programmes by the Financial Times, at a fraction of the usual executive education fee.

See the programme
Platform 02 · DealZone

Hundreds of deals a year. None of them public.

Our 30,000+ non-execs and chairs sit on and advise more than 60,000 boards. That gives DealZone proprietary sight of hundreds of off-market capital raises, business exits and buy-side mandates, and a direct line to the people who can open the door before any of it is public.

Not scraped data. Not broker spam. The network telling you first.

c.8,000
Investing non-executive directors inside the network. Operators who back a business with capital as well as judgement.
£800m
Indicated co-investment capital across the investing membership, deployed alongside a non-executive board seat.
c.400 a year
Off-market capital raises, business exits and buy-side mandates circulated to members before they reach a broker or the open market.

Tell us what you are looking for.

Whether you are advising on a deal, raising, selling or looking to back the next one, DealZone puts you in front of dealmakers and investors who understand the boardroom because they sit in it.

  • We match your remit against live off-market mandates
  • Introductions happen in minutes, not quarters
  • Nothing is shared outside the network

Already have DealZone access? Sign in

Request DealZone access
We review every request. No deal information is shared until you are verified.
Platform 03 · HiringZone

Your next Chair or NED, in days, at a fraction of the fee.

Post the brief. We take one call to understand the board, the stage and the challenge ahead, then shortlist from a bench that is already diligenced. No retainer, no percentage, no six-month process.

One fixed fee
Agreed upfront and typically 80–90% below conventional executive search
No % of salary
Under 5 days
From brief to a shortlist of board-level candidates who have done the job before
Shortlist
30,000+
Diligenced non-execs, board advisors, chairs, interims and fractional C-suite on the bench
Bench
100%
Of mandates filled across the last twelve months, from seed-stage to PE-backed
Fill rate
100+ years
Of combined board search experience in the team running every brief
Experience
Partnership · Aquis Stock Exchange

The board bench behind the next wave of Aquis listings.

VirtualNonExecs is the board partner to the Aquis IPO Academy. As private companies work through the readiness programme, we identify and appoint the Non-Executive Directors and Chairs who will sit on their boards at listing.

Six months
The length of the Aquis IPO Academy readiness programme, free to participate and delivered with Barclays Eagle Labs.
£1m+
The revenue or recent raise threshold for companies entering the Academy, alongside a team of ten or more.
Board partner
Board partner to the Academy, identifying and appointing non-executives and Chairs across every cohort.

A company arriving at the listing gate needs a board that public markets will underwrite: an audit chair who has done it before, a non-executive who has already sat through the scrutiny. That bench comes from the VirtualNonExecs membership.

A VirtualNonExecs × Aquis Stock Exchange partnership · The Aquis IPO Academy is delivered with Barclays Eagle Labs
Investor forum audience
The standard
Boards meet the people who actually move them.

Not the most available. Not the fastest introduction. The operator whose track record, capital and contacts genuinely change what a business can do next. VirtualNonExecs members are not placed onto boards. They are people the boards choose to bring in.

In their words

Members, investors and boards on what changed.

By far the best and most vibrant membership organisation. In just two weeks I had 12 meetings resulting in several business opportunities.

Jowita Penkala
Jowita Penkala
Member

This is a game changer for making Chair and NED hires.

Ben Newsome
Ben Newsome
Portfolio Partner, Octopus

For NEDs and Chairs, missing VirtualNonExecs' exposure to PE funds is a lost opportunity.

Chris Wardle
Chris Wardle
Managing Director, Foresight Group

Without doubt the most powerful connecting tool for non-executives and chairs. The level of access is phenomenal.

Stuart St. Fitzgerald
Stuart St. Fitzgerald
Member

We found investors and a non-executive in days. Five star experience.

Nigel Eastham
Nigel Eastham
Founder, Susyard

We were blown away by the quality of the membership.

John Davies
John Davies
Managing Partner, Pitalia

We've made exceptional, quick board appointments through the network. Highly recommended.

David Elkabas
David Elkabas
Managing Director, Tribes

Excellent experience. We hired two NEDs. I'd recommend it to any start-up or founder.

Rob Illidge
Rob Illidge
Founder, Vulse

What VirtualNonExecs does for the investment community is nothing short of brilliant.

Andrew Hughes
Andrew Hughes
Chairman, multiple PE-backed companies
Networker Pro

Why Networker Pro?

Four things that move you from browsing board roles to sitting in front of the people appointing for them.

The Community Hub

Deals get done through people, not listings. Talk directly with the chairs and peers who already advise thousands of businesses, and get the introduction from someone who is already in the room.

Direct access to 30,000+ members
26 online sessions a year

Bi-monthly NEDWorkin' sessions where members meet each other and the funds, chairs and founders appointing board advisors, plus the dinners and roundtables around them.

Every fortnight, all year
Weekly AI NEDWorkin'

Tell the system what you are looking for in plain English. It works the network and delivers up to eight matched board contacts to you every week, without you chasing a single one.

Up to 8 contacts a week
CVRank

An AI-powered ATS check that scores your CV against the role before you apply, so you find out whether it clears the screen while you can still do something about it.

Score before you apply
We get you the interview, not the job.

The seat is yours to win in the room. Everything Networker Pro does is aimed at making sure you get into it.

VirtualNonExecs · Membership, DealZone, HiringZone

Sit with the people who have already done it.

Whether you are building a board, backing one or ready to join one, it all starts with the same membership.