Home / Board Membership & Corporate Ties / Board Membership & Corporate Ties Specification
Board Membership & Corporate Ties
1. Purpose
The Board Membership & Corporate Ties module is designed to identify, track, and analyze the relationships between individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, advisory boards, and affiliated entities. The module provides a comprehensive view of corporate influence, governance relationships, and potential conflicts of interest by continuously monitoring public records and applying artificial intelligence to relationship discovery.
The system enables researchers, journalists, watchdog organizations, compliance departments, and transparency platforms to understand how individuals and organizations are interconnected across public companies, private entities, nonprofits, and advisory groups.
2. Objectives
The module shall:
- Discover current board memberships
- Discover former board memberships
- Analyze SEC filings
- Scan corporate registration records
- Track nonprofit board participation
- Detect advisory positions
- Identify conflicts of interest
- Build corporate relationship maps
- Monitor changes in relationships over time
- Generate evidence-based alerts
- Provide explainable AI findings
- Support human review and verification
3. Core Features
3.1 Current Board Membership Search
The system shall perform AI-powered searches to identify active board memberships.
Data Sources
- SEC EDGAR
- Annual reports
- Proxy statements
- Corporate websites
- Investor relations pages
- Corporate governance pages
- Press releases
- State corporate registries
- International corporate registries
- Professional biographies
- University board pages
- Foundation websites
- News articles
Discovery Methods
- Named entity recognition
- Executive title extraction
- Director extraction
- Biography analysis
- Document classification
- Cross-document verification
- Confidence scoring
Captured Information
- Organization name
- Position title
- Start date
- Appointment date
- Compensation information
- Committee memberships
- Board status
- Source documents
- Verification score
4. Former Board Membership Search
The system shall identify historical board positions.
Historical Sources
- Archived SEC filings
- Historical annual reports
- News archives
- Press releases
- Archived websites
- Corporate history documents
- Nonprofit filings
- Bankruptcy records
- Merger documents
Historical Data Fields
- Organization
- Position
- Service dates
- Departure date
- Reason for departure
- Successor information
- Historical compensation
- Historical committees
5. SEC Filing Analysis
Supported Filing Types
- DEF 14A
- 10-K
- 10-Q
- 8-K
- S-1
- 13D
- 13G
- Form 3
- Form 4
- Form 5
Extraction Requirements
The AI system shall extract:
- Board members
- Executive officers
- Compensation data
- Related party transactions
- Governance structures
- Ownership information
- Committee assignments
- Family relationships
- Related entities
- Consulting agreements
- Advisory agreements
Analysis Engine
The system shall:
- Download filings.
- Convert documents into structured text.
- Extract entities.
- Link entities.
- Build relationships.
- Calculate confidence scores.
- Store evidence.
6. Corporate Registration Record Scanning
Supported Registries
- Secretary of State databases
- Business registration databases
- International company registries
- Beneficial ownership databases
- Corporate transparency databases
- Public procurement databases
Extracted Information
- Directors
- Officers
- Registered agents
- Managers
- Owners
- Company addresses
- Formation dates
- Dissolution dates
- Amendments
- Name changes
Entity Resolution
The module shall:
- Normalize names
- Detect aliases
- Identify name variations
- Match entities across jurisdictions
- Resolve duplicates
- Link subsidiaries
- Link parent organizations
7. Nonprofit Board Tracking
Supported Sources
- IRS Form 990
- Charity reports
- Foundation filings
- Nonprofit annual reports
- State nonprofit registries
- University foundation reports
- NGO disclosures
Data Fields
- Board member names
- Officers
- Trustees
- Advisory members
- Compensation
- Committee assignments
- Terms of service
- Family relationships
Monitoring Functions
- Appointment detection
- Resignation detection
- Compensation changes
- Governance changes
- Board expansion detection
8. Advisory Role Detection
The system shall identify advisory relationships that may not be formally disclosed.
Sources
- Professional biographies
- Company websites
- Press releases
- News articles
- Conference materials
- LinkedIn-style public profiles
- Academic institutions
- Industry associations
- Consulting agreements
Advisory Roles
- Strategic advisor
- Senior advisor
- Industry advisor
- Scientific advisor
- Technology advisor
- Investment advisor
- Policy advisor
- Advisory board member
- Fellow
- Consultant
Detection Methods
- Natural language processing
- Title extraction
- Relationship classification
- Semantic similarity analysis
- Cross-document validation
9. Conflict-of-Interest Alerts
The module shall continuously analyze relationships to identify potential conflicts.
Conflict Categories
Financial Conflicts
- Board memberships and investments
- Stock ownership
- Compensation relationships
- Vendor relationships
Government Conflicts
- Public office and private board service
- Procurement relationships
- Regulatory influence
- Policy influence
Nonprofit Conflicts
- Self-dealing
- Related organizations
- Shared directors
- Grant recipient relationships
Corporate Governance Conflicts
- Interlocking directorates
- Undisclosed affiliations
- Circular ownership
- Family relationships
Alert Severity Levels
Informational
Low risk relationships.
Moderate
Potential conflicts requiring review.
High
Significant conflict indicators.
Critical
Relationships requiring immediate investigation.
Alert Workflow
- Detect relationship.
- Verify evidence.
- Score risk.
- Generate alert.
- Route for review.
- Document resolution.
10. Corporate Relationship Maps
The module shall create interactive relationship maps.
Supported Relationships
- Board membership
- Executive relationships
- Ownership
- Subsidiaries
- Parent companies
- Advisory roles
- Investment relationships
- Family relationships
- Nonprofit affiliations
- Government affiliations
Visualization Features
- Network graph
- Timeline mode
- Geographic mode
- Ownership tree
- Influence map
- Interlocking directorate map
- Historical snapshots
Graph Database Requirements
Recommended technologies:
- Neo4j
- ArangoDB
- JanusGraph
- Amazon Neptune
11. Database Schema Requirements
Person Table
Fields:
- person_id
- full_name
- aliases
- birth_year
- biography
- confidence_score
Organization Table
Fields:
- organization_id
- organization_name
- organization_type
- jurisdiction
- status
- website
Board Position Table
Fields:
- board_position_id
- person_id
- organization_id
- title
- start_date
- end_date
- active_status
Advisory Position Table
Fields:
- advisory_position_id
- person_id
- organization_id
- title
- start_date
- end_date
Relationship Table
Fields:
- relationship_id
- source_entity
- target_entity
- relationship_type
- confidence_score
- evidence_count
Alert Table
Fields:
- alert_id
- alert_type
- severity
- entity_id
- evidence
- status
- created_at
12. AI Architecture
Components
Entity Recognition Engine
Identifies:
- People
- Organizations
- Titles
- Dates
- Locations
Relationship Discovery Engine
Identifies:
- Governance relationships
- Ownership relationships
- Influence relationships
- Historical relationships
Conflict Detection Engine
Identifies:
- Direct conflicts
- Indirect conflicts
- Hidden conflicts
- Emerging conflicts
Explainability Engine
Provides:
- Evidence
- Sources
- Confidence scores
- Reasoning chain
13. Search and Indexing Requirements
The system shall support:
- Full text search
- Fuzzy matching
- Alias search
- Historical search
- Relationship search
- Timeline search
- Geographic search
- Organization search
14. API Requirements
Search API
- Search by person
- Search by organization
- Search by board position
- Search by advisory role
Relationship API
- Relationship graph retrieval
- Influence graph retrieval
- Historical relationship retrieval
Alert API
- Retrieve alerts
- Resolve alerts
- Export alerts
15. Evidence Requirements
Every finding shall include:
- Source URL
- Source document
- Retrieval date
- Verification status
- Confidence score
- Evidence text
- Supporting documents
16. Human Review Requirements
All high-risk findings shall require review.
Reviewers shall be able to:
- Approve findings
- Reject findings
- Modify findings
- Add notes
- Attach evidence
- Escalate investigations
Specification Branding License (SBL)
Standard
- Fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant system
- Copyleft enforced for network deployments
- Required attribution:
- Roxanne Ardary
- https://www.roxanneardary.com/
Optional
- Specification Branding License (SBL)
- Attribution-free commercial deployment
- Pricing based on scale, usage, and deployment scope
- https://roxanneardary.com/board-membership-corporate-ties/
License & Notice Requirements
Board Membership & Corporate Ties Specification is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+). By contributing to any Open Arsenal project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.
Please note the following:
- All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
- Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to: Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
- Board Membership & Corporate Ties specifications are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
- The project’s notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments. Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
- When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
- Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.
For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project’s notice.md file.
Notice – ActionCheck
Attribution Requirement: Under Section 7 of the AGPL 3.0+ license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works, including network-deployed versions of this project, must provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
Contributors
This file tracks contributors and their specific contributions to the project.
- Roxanne Ardary, roxanneardary.com – March 10, 2026
Created the repository for ActionCheck. Designed the platform to track politicians’ promises, votes, financial activity, and board memberships for public accountability. - [Add other contributors here] – [Date]
[Describe contribution in one sentence]
License
This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
Key Points
- You are free to use, modify, and distribute the code.
- All redistributions, forks, and derivative works or network-deployed versions must also be licensed under AGPL-3.0+ and provide attribution to Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com as required under Section 7 of the license.
- The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind.
For the full license text, see GNU AGPL-3.0 License.