How the Exchange works
What we publish, what we refuse to publish, and why the second list matters more.
A platform in this space could fill a homepage in an afternoon with plausible-looking appointment headlines and a wall of invented counters. We decided at the outset not to, because a reader who catches one fabricated item stops believing the regulatory intelligence too — and the regulatory intelligence is the actual product.
Three sources, and nothing else
Everything on this platform is one of these three things.
Statute and code
Board composition rules, independence tests, tenure caps, residency requirements, diversity thresholds. Each cited to the instrument that creates it, with the date a person last checked it against the primary source.
224 instruments mapped across 52 markets
Our own book
Seats the Board Practice is sourcing, and the applications made to them. Counted, never inflated.
981 seats across 45 markets
Interpretation, labelled
What a rule change means for a cross-border candidate is our opinion, and it appears under its own heading everywhere — never mixed into the factual body of an item.
19 feed items, 57 mapped corridors
The fourth category, deliberately absent
Named-company appointment news.
“X was appointed to Y’s board” is the easiest content in this category to produce and the hardest to stand behind without the filing. We do not hold the filed record for these markets, so we do not publish it — and a reader who wants that depth for India, where we do hold it, should use India ID Exchange, which reads thousands of listed boards nightly.
If you are a director
Four steps, and the first three are free.
- 1
Narrow the list
Run the mobility index. It ranks every market against your record across four components and is built to rule markets out, which is more useful than a list of possibilities.
Run the index → - 2
Confirm you are eligible
Check the two or three markets that scored well in the eligibility checker. Residency, nationality, work authorisation, registration steps and the frictions that actually delay appointments.
Check a market → - 3
Read the regime and the feed
Work out when seats open in that market. A tenure cap is a vacancy schedule the market has already published, and the regional feed tells you what changed most recently.
Open a regional exchange → - 4
Apply from your account
Registering is free and you can apply straight away — one application a fortnight. Pass the free assessment and you are certified for a year, with one application a week. Foresight Infinity (US$250 a month) raises that to one application a day and carries your applications ahead of free members; Foresight Infinity Plus (US$500 a month) carries them first, the moment they arrive. Foresight also brings seat matching and Whisper — our world-class custom job-search agent.
See what Premium includes →
If you are a board
Start with the problem, not the profile.
- 1
Name the capability
Not the profile. 'A director who has made a materiality call on a live cyber incident' is a search; 'a technology director' produces a shortlist of people who can describe technology.
The expertise map → - 2
Check whether it exists at home
If the domestic pool holds it, an international brief is the wrong instrument, and we will say so. That answer costs us a seat and is why a chair takes the next call.
How we scope a seat → - 3
Choose the instrument
A statutory seat, an interim leader, or an advisory engagement. Most briefs arrive as the wrong one, and correcting that at the outset saves a year.
Compare the three → - 4
Open the seat
Listing costs nothing. Confidential by default, with the organisation shown as an archetype until you decide otherwise.
Open a seat →
Questions
Answered directly.
Where does the intelligence come from?
Primary sources: companies acts, listing rules, governance codes and regulator publications. Every rule on a regional exchange page names the instrument that creates it, and every feed item names the authority that made the change. Nothing on this platform rests on 'reports suggest'.
Why is there no appointment news?
Because we do not hold the filings that would support it in these markets. India ID Exchange can say a named director was appointed to a named board because it reads the filed record of that market every night. Publishing the same kind of claim about a market whose filings we do not hold would be an assertion rather than a report, and one bad item would cost the regulatory intelligence its credibility.
How do I know which statements are facts and which are your opinion?
By where they appear. Statute and listing rules sit in the regime maps and in the body of each feed item, cited. Our reading sits under its own heading — 'What it means for a cross-border candidate' on a feed item, 'The demand thesis' on a market page — and says so in the text. The scoring model behind the mobility index is held in a separate module from the market data for the same reason.
How current are the regime maps?
Each regional exchange states the month a person last checked its provisions against the primary source. The oldest of those dates across all 52 markets is shown in the footer — the oldest rather than the newest, because that is the age of the least fresh thing on the platform.
Is any of this legal advice?
No. It is governance decision-support. Rules change, transitional provisions apply, and sector-specific regimes frequently override the general position. Verify against the primary instrument, and take local advice, before you rely on anything here.
How does this relate to India ID Exchange?
India ID Exchange is our dedicated Indian platform, and it goes far deeper: it reads thousands of listed boards nightly and names independent-director seats from the filed record before they are advertised. The Global Exchange maps India's regime like every other market and links across rather than duplicating that depth.
Regime maps last reviewed against primary sources in August 2026.
Global ID Exchange
Everything above is free to use. Start with the ninety-second version.
The mobility index ranks every market on the Exchange against your record and shows you why each one scored where it did — which is the only way to tell a solvable obstacle from a structural one.