Neuroinclusive Talent Governance Board Challenger — Digital Payments

The mandate

The company promotes neurodiverse hiring, yet candidates and employees report inconsistent assessment formats, manager confidence, sensory environments and accommodation response. Programme reporting counts declarations and hires but not role access, retention, progression, work friction or privacy. Directors need evidence that inclusion is embedded across mainstream talent systems rather than dependent on a small specialist team.

The adviser will challenge job design, attraction, assessment, interview, onboarding, workplace tools, communication norms, accommodation, manager practice, mobility and progression evidence. Review will distinguish universal design from individual adjustment, employee choice from pressured disclosure, and genuine outcome improvement from selective recruitment into narrow roles. Protected health information will not become board reporting, even through small aggregated cohorts.

The appointment runs for nine months with monthly evidence reviews, four anonymised employee-journey examinations and five committee sessions. A barrier-and-outcome map will precede every meeting. Renewal is limited to one month if a new assessment platform launches during the original term and creates a material accessibility question requiring board review.

The challenger has no line authority, executive responsibility, hiring authority, employment authority, medical authority, accommodation-decision authority or approval authority. Management operates talent systems and decides employment matters; authorised professionals handle health information; employees control disclosure. The adviser may question barriers and recommend redesign but cannot diagnose, assess individuals, mandate disclosure or decide adjustments.

Interests involving assessment vendors, specialist recruiters, occupational-health providers, advocacy bodies, employee networks and regulators must be disclosed. Paid promotion of a provider or diagnostic pathway is prohibited. The remit excludes medical advice, individual accommodation decisions, recruitment delivery, litigation support, employee-case handling, vendor selection and certification of accessibility.

Why the board wants this voice

Public commitments and specialist programmes can coexist with mainstream systems that continue to reward one communication, sensory and assessment norm. The board wants a challenger able to follow real candidate and employee barriers while protecting meaningful choice and sensitive health privacy, without becoming clinician, advocate, recruiter or case manager.

What you will own

• Challenge barriers across job language, sourcing, assessments, interviews, onboarding, tools, workplaces and manager routines.
• Examine universal design and individual accommodation routes for timeliness, choice, privacy, clarity and practical effectiveness.
• Test whether employees can decline disclosure or adjustment without losing access to roles, learning or progression.
• Compare attraction, conversion, retention, mobility and experience outcomes without exposing sensitive individual information.
• Scrutinise manager guidance, escalation, vendor accessibility, employee-network evidence and recurring friction patterns.
• Maintain a board ledger of systemic barriers, unsupported claims, management action and residual inclusion risk.
• Stress-test governance with an inaccessible assessment, sensory change, manager refusal and employee nondisclosure.

Candidate qualifications

• Advised boards on neuroinclusive talent or disability inclusion across complex technology and operational workforces.
• Evaluated job, assessment, workplace and manager barriers using candidate and employee journey evidence.
• Distinguished universal design from individual accommodation while protecting health privacy and voluntary disclosure.
• Challenged programme metrics through access, conversion, retention, mobility and experience outcomes.
• Preserved boundaries among governance challenge, employment decisions, occupational health, advocacy and legal advice.
• Produced rigorous inclusion evidence that remained decision-useful through platform change, manager resistance, small-cohort privacy constraints and sustained employee concern.

Non-negotiables

• Available for Dublin committee sessions and four controlled anonymised employee-journey reviews.
• Direct neuroinclusive or disability talent governance experience is required; broad diversity advocacy is insufficient.
• Will disclose vendor, recruiter, health-provider, advocacy, employee-network and regulator relationships.
• Will not diagnose people, mandate disclosure, decide accommodations, select candidates or certify accessibility.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a mainstream talent process that undermined a well-intended neuroinclusion programme.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you measure barriers without pressuring employees to disclose health information?
3. 49 words maximum. Which assessment change would you ask the board to test first?