Privacy Policy

Who are we? 

The Good Board Limited provides executive search, coaching, mentoring, assessment and Board advisory services to clients looking to recruit and develop leaders for their businesses. 

We are UK based and work on a national and international basis with a range of listed, private, third-sector, public and family-owned organisations to find, develop and connect leaders and purpose-led organisations. 

We work in open, honest, and collaborative partnerships with all our stakeholders. Trust, integrity, and professionalism are foundational to our work. We strive to always do the right thing as well as do to things right in service of the clients and individuals we support. 

This privacy policy applies to www.thegoodboard.com 

What does this policy cover? 

We take your personal data seriously, and this policy: 

• Sets out the types of personal data that we collect about you; 

• explains how and why we collect and use your personal data; 

• explains for how long we keep your personal data; 

• explains when, why and with who we will share your personal data; 

• sets out the legal basis we have for using your personal data; 

• explains the effect of refusing to provide the personal data requested; 

• explains the different rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data; 

• and explains how we may contact you and how you can contact us. 

What personal data do we collect about you? 

We collect the information necessary to make meaningful and relevant connections for you, to find available opportunities and further information needed to assess your eligibility through the different stages of the search and recruitment process. 

This information includes CVs, contact details, identification documents, educational records, work history, employment and references and any other information that is provided by you throughout the course of the search process. 

In some cases, we may also collect sensitive personal data from you. However, we only collect sensitive personal data, and further process this data, where you have given your explicit consent. 

Where do we collect personal data about you from? 

We may collect personal data about you from: 

Directly from you. This is information you provide while searching for a new opportunity and/or during a search or assessment process. 

Through publicly available sources. We use, among others, the following public sources: 

• LinkedIn, Companies House, Boardex, Factiva, Google, Company Websites, digital and printed news / publications, X (Twitter), and other social media platforms 

By Reference or word of mouth. For example, you may be recommended by a friend, a former employer, a former colleague, or even a present employer 

From an agent/third party acting on your behalf. e.g. Outplacement / Career Transition Agency 

As a referee. If you are listed as a referee, we will obtain your information from the candidate themselves or one of the third parties listed above 

How and why do we use your information? 

We use your personal data to match your skills, experience and education with an existing search mandate or development opportunity or connection opportunity. We will initially collect basic information on you such as contact details, professional experience and then pass this on to the client. If you are chosen by the client and go through to the next stage of the process, we will then collect more information about you at the interview (for example, motivations, achievements, personal circumstances) for our client to assess your suitability. P

We may also use your personal data to invite you to digital and in person events and forums, or to participate in surveys run by The Good Board. We do not sell your personal data to third parties, and we do not share it except as necessary to provide our services. We may need to share your information with our clients for them to assess your suitability, and some of our services providers (for example, our IT provider) may store of otherwise use your information on our instruction, in which case we will have a contract in place with them to protect your information. 

If you are a referee, we use your information to contact you about a candidate and obtain a reference on the individual 

How long do we keep your personal data for? 

We retain client, candidate and referee data for 7 years and securely erase your information once that period has elapsed. 

With whom do we share your personal data? 

We share your personal data as necessary for our legitimate interest in finding and assessing candidates for roles for clients. 

We may share your information with a verification company or relevant organisation, if we conduct checks to verify information you have provided, for example a university registrar to confirm degree qualifications. 

What legal basis do we have for using your information? 

For prospective candidates, referees and clients, our processing is necessary for our legitimate interests in that we need the information in order to be able to assess suitability for potential roles, to find potential candidates, to build insight into our relevant markets, and to contact clients and referees. 

We carry out a ‘balancing test’ to ensure that our processing is necessary and that your fundamental rights of privacy are not outweighed by our legitimate interests, before we go ahead with such processing. 

If you are shortlisted as a candidate, then this may involve the processing of more detailed personal data including sensitive data such as health information that you or others provide about you. In that case, we always ask for your consent before undertaking such processing. 

We will process client data (including information about members of staff at that client) necessary for our legitimate interests in fulfilling our contract with the client. 

What happens if you do not provide us with the information we request or ask that we stop processing your information? 

If you do not provide the personal data necessary, or withdraw your consent for the processing of your personal data, we will not be able to match you potential search mandates. At your request, you will be removed from the database and will not be contacted by us again. 

Do we make automated decisions concerning you? 

No, we do not carry out automated profiling. 

Do we transfer your data outside of the EEA? 

We may transfer your personal data to clients and partners in countries outside the EEA. The privacy laws of other countries may be different from those in your home country. Where we transfer personal data outside of the EEA, we take steps to safeguard that information, including by ensuring that the European Commission considers they have adequate data protection standards, or by putting in place model clauses with the recipient approved by the EU or data protection authority. 

Keeping information secure 

We invest significant resources to protect your personal information, from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, no internet-based site can be 100% secure and so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control. 

What rights do you have in relation to data we hold on you? 

By law, you have a number of rights when it comes to your personal data. Further information and advice about your rights can be obtained from the data protection regulator in your country.

What does this mean? 

The right to be informed 

You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your information and your rights. That is why we are providing you with the information in this Policy. 

The right of access 

You have the right to obtain access to your information (if we’re processing it), and certain other information (similar to that provided in this Privacy Policy). 

The right to rectification 

You are entitled to have your information corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete. 

The right to erasure 

This is known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and enables you to request the deletion or removal of your information where there is no compelling reason for us to continue using it. This is not a general right to erasure, there are exceptions. 

The right to restrict processing 

You have rights to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your information. When processing is restricted, we can still store your information, but may not use it further. We keep lists of people who have asked for further use of their data to be ‘blocked’ to make sure the restriction is respected in future. 

The right to data portability 

You have rights to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. For example, if you decide to switch to a new provider, this enables you to move, copy or transfer your information easily between our IT systems and theirs safely and securely, without affecting its usability. 

The right to object to processing 

You have the right to object to certain types of processing, including processing for direct marketing (i.e. if you no longer want to be contacted with potential opportunities). 

The right to lodge a complaint 

You have the right to lodge a complaint about the way we handle or process your personal data with your national data protection regulator. 

The right to withdraw consent 

If you have given your consent to anything we do with your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that anything we have done with your personal data with your consent up to that point is unlawful). This includes your right to withdraw consent to us using your personal data for marketing purposes. 

We usually act on requests and provide information free of charge, but may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs of providing the information for: baseless or excessive/repeated requests, or further copies of the same information. 

Alternatively, we may be entitled to refuse to act on the request. 

Please consider your request responsibly before submitting it. We will respond as soon as we can, generally this will be within 30 days of the request being received. If the request is going to take longer to deal with, we will let you know. 

Do we use ‘Cookies’ to collect personal data on you? 

No, we do not use cookies to collect personal data on you. However, our website uses cookies to provide a better service. Please see our cookie policy for more details. 

Third-party links 

We do not include or offer third-party products or services on our website. 

Updates 

We keep this Policy under regular review and update it from time to time. Please review this policy periodically for changes. 

How will we contact you? 

We may contact you by phone, email or social media. If you prefer one contact means over another, please let us know. 

How can you contact us? 

If you are unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, or have further questions on the processing of your personal data please contact us at: 

Email: privacy@thegoodboard.com 

Cookie Policy 

Cookies are in use on The Good Board website: www.thegoodboard.com 

Cookies and how they benefit you: 

Our websites uses cookies, as most websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can. You do not give out personal information by visiting our website, we only keep track of anonymous traffic data. 

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you browse websites, further information on cookies below. 

Our Cookies help us to: 

• Make our website work as you’d expect 

• Save you having to log in every time you visit the site 

• Improve the speed / security of the site 

• Continuously improve our website for you 

We do not use Cookies to: 

• Collect any personally identifiable or sensitive information 

• Pass data to advertising networks 

• Pass personally identifiable data to third parties 

• Pay sales commissions 

Granting us permission to use Cookies: 

If the settings on the software that you are using to view this website (your browser) are adjusted to accept cookies we take this, and your continued use of our website, to mean that you are fine with this. Should you wish to remove or not use cookies from our site you can learn how to do this below, however, doing so will likely mean that our site will not work as you would expect. 

Website function Cookies: 

Our own Cookies 

We use cookies to make our website work including: 

• Determining if you are logged in or not. 

• There is no way to prevent these cookies being set other than to not use our site. 

Third party functions 

Our site, like most websites, includes functionality provided by third parties. A common example is an embedded video. 

Anonymous visitor statistics Cookies 

We use Google Analytics and Cookies to help us continuously improve our website, service, user experience and to analyse how the website is used. Aside from the approximate location (IP address), the information collected by Google Analytics is mostly anonymous traffic data including browser information, page views and device information. The collected information is used to provide an overview of how people are accessing and using The Good Board website, how people reached this site (e.g. from a search engine), whether they have been here before and how much time they spend on our website. 

Turning Cookies off 

You can usually switch cookies off by adjusting your browser settings to stop it from accepting cookies. Doing so however, will likely limit the functionality of most websites as cookies are a standard part of most modern websites. It may be that your concerns around cookies relate to so called “spyware”. Rather than switching off cookies in your browser you may find that anti-spyware software achieves the same objective by automatically deleting cookies considered to be invasive. 

What is a Cookie? 

A cookie is a small piece of data, often containing a unique identifier that is sent and stored on your device from a website. Each website can send its own cookies to your device if your browsers preference allows it, by default all browsers allow cookies. To protect your privacy, the browser will only allow the website that created a cookie to access it. 

Cookies are widely used to make websites work, work more efficiently, tailor their experience or track how you are using a website, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. For more information about cookies please visit www.allaboutcookies.org. 

The Good Board Cookies 

The Good Board does not use cookies to collect or store your personal information, a breakdown of cookies The Good Board does use is shown below. We notably use Google as a trusted third party to track some information such as your behaviour online and we collate the information to enhance and update The Good Board website.