Connectd Avis 

Potential NEDs/Advisors beware!

Unpaid roles for 6 months. Selling you "experience", for zero monetary return, while Connectd bank a nice fee from the client.

They contact you initially on LinkedIn, get you to set up and appointment for a Google Meet, all the while there's no mention that these roles are unpaid.

Mention that the roles are UNPAID from the outset and STOP wasting people's time.

As mentioned in other negative reviews, this has a really shady pyramid scheme vibe to it.

Avoid these scammers like the plague.

Gobshites.

Having worked at the same company for 30 years, I was a little hesitant about what might come next.

Connectd gave me options; to spend my time on what mattered most, to freely explore a portfolio career, and to remain calm and confident in doing so.

Couldn’t recommend it enough to anyone thinking about fractional work.

I warn people to watch out for their sales technique - they should win as oscar. they contact you, pretend you have been found and have 'special qualities' that are under consideration, then you are 'accepted' - this is BS, you do not have 'special qualities', they just want your money. They cast a wide net and take in as many as possible for a market that is over saturated. They take no risks - you take all the risks, and if you are new to this, then you are potentially screwed. It is basically a pyramid scheme to extract money from you when are you vulnerable. Don't do it unless you are loaded and have no money worries, no job worries, no worries at all

Truly an incredible service. The team is a delight and the process is perfect for an ambitious and fast growing company looking to take their work to the next stage

I have not had a great experience with Connectd, when I joined I was promised lots of support and help, I found the training useful but basic and very self led so although I completed all the exercises as really want to break into this field, it would be so easy to not do it as there was no accountability, once I completed the training, I was assigned a mentor who was lovely and gave me some great advice in terms of other networks I should join, but as for Connectd, I have applied for lots of placements and no feedback, I haven’t heard from the placement team apart from when I have contacted them an then I gnat get a blanket response that it can take up to 90 days to get a placement and I should reach out to founders (you get 8 messages a month) which I have done but have not received single response from founders - it feels like a scam!

I have since been told that people leave before their placement- and you can’t leave for 1 year!

Great course and program. Relevant info. Videos are done well. Highly recommend Connectd!

Connectd have been fantastic. From creating really insightful but also challenging courses to creating a community that's truly supportive and securing incredible mentors they really work to make sure you're set up for success as you transition to a portfolio career. They really are transforming the advisory and fractional space and I can't wait to see what they do next!

For starting out on your Board Advisory, NED journey or simply transitioning to fractional work - I would recommend connectd. Yes, there are some costs, but the CPD is simple, easy to digest and actionable - moreover it is paired with a mentor programme to support your transition and assist you in your first position. Connectd removes the anxiety over gaining that first position, the one that can lead to the next.

It's been a great experience with Connectd so far. Everyone has been very professional, friendly and welcoming. The community is of high calibre so it has been a pleasure to providing mentoring to the graduates coming through their Transition to Portfolio program. Excellent!

I joined the Connectd community recently following an article I saw on LinkedIn. I've always been interested in fractional work so this seemed the perfect opportunity to explore further. From the initial engagement with the Connectd team through to the in-depth and informative training my early experience has been great. Now I am looking forward to my first pro-bono engagement, organised by Connectd, to find out first hand the life of a fractional executive which will hopefully lead to an exciting new chapter in my career.

This course brought together detailed research and targeted skills development to prepare participants to confidently take on portfolio advisory roles and support growing businesses. The program covered the full journey, from understanding the responsibilities of advisory and board roles to developing the skills needed to contribute effectively to founders and leadership teams. 💪🏼

📈 The experience focused on evidence-driven career coaching, human development techniques, and practical advisory approaches that strengthen how mentors support founders through growth challenges.

I’m looking forward to applying these insights while working with startups and leadership teams, particularly in areas such as market expansion, brand positioning, and scalable growth.

Grateful for the learning and excited for what comes next. 😎

I am a mentor for aspiring advisors, NEDs and fractional leaders on Connectd. My experience has been extremely well and I would recommend people to the platform who is interested in a career as NED/advisor or fractional.

I've been working with Connectd for 18 months to help build my portfolio as a Board Advisor. I have found the platform, as well as the community, very professional and helpful.

It's a platform that is very focused on the experience of portfolio professionals.

I had a really positive experience with Connectd so far. From the first interaction, everything moved quickly and felt well managed. I was matched with a suitable advisor faster than I expected, and the process was straightforward and efficient.

Emily was particularly helpful, very responsive, resourceful, and proactive about keeping things moving. Even when I had a couple of questions, she made sure the right person was looped in and followed up quickly.

Overall, great service if you want to be connected to the right expertise without a long, drawn-out process.

Great advisors, great company, and access to free cloud credits!

I’ve been part of Connectd’s “Route to Advisor” package for a year, and the experience has been incredibly disappointing.

The training content is extremely basic. Frankly, if someone needs that level of material to understand what advisory work involves, they shouldn’t be positioning themselves as an advisor or NED in the first place. It feels less like executive-level preparation and more like surface-level theory.

The community platform – one of the key selling points – has been down for months. Feedback and complaints are either ignored or met with silence. For a paid programme, that’s unacceptable.

As advisors, we pay a significant sum to be involved. In my case, I’ve been matched with a genuinely good team, but the reality is I’m effectively working for free – actually worse, I’m paying for the privilege. The pipeline of additional opportunities has been limited, and certainly nowhere near what was implied.

Within the advisory groups I’m part of, there’s growing frustration. The consistent theme is the same: we were sold a compelling vision and received something far smaller in substance.

At this price point, and with this positioning, the delivery simply doesn’t justify the cost. I cannot recommend it in its current form.

We're NexTrial.ai an AI company building clinical trial activation infrastructure across the U.S., Brazil, and India. When we engaged Connectd, we needed advisors who could match the pace of a founder-led startup operating across multiple jurisdictions, regulatory frameworks, and complex stakeholder ecosystems. That's not an easy brief to fill.

Our account manager didn't just match us with names. He took the time to understand our mission, our culture, our stage, and the specific leadership gaps we needed to close. Then he delivered three perfectly curated advisors who felt like extensions of our founding team from week one.

Dr. Allan Freedline brought a MedTech and clinical operations perspective that immediately elevated our product thinking and commercial strategy. His insights on site readiness across different care channels reshaped how we approach activation workflows. He refined our investor pitch, strengthened our ACO strategy, introduced us to key industry networks, and, most importantly, extended our core product thesis in a direction that changed our roadmap. We meet weekly, and the value compounds every session.

Alexandra Laymon transformed our go-to-market from ambition into a disciplined, structured war plan. She built what we now call the "Laymon Tactical Arsenal" a complete playbook covering audience-specific messaging, sales sequencing, event strategy, and ICP prioritization that saved us months of wasted cycles. Her phase-based sales framework gave us operational rigor: get the meeting, identify the real decision-maker, leave with concrete next steps. She taught us how to leverage our early academic pilots to create competitive urgency across institutions. She is a force multiplier.

Michelle Purdom brought deep Clinical Operations and Clinical Informatics expertise and positioned herself exactly where we needed her: at the intersection of clinical credibility and sponsor-readiness. She validated our category positioning, stress-tested our product claims for the exact buyer personas we're targeting, and flagged regulatory and compliance enhancements that strengthened our differentiation. Strategically, she identified new geographic market opportunities we hadn't prioritized, surfaced emerging industry trends that shaped our competitive positioning, and opened her network with direct introductions to senior biotech and healthcare executives. Her coaching elevated every investor pitch and partner conversation we've had since.

What makes Connectd exceptional: curated matches, never random intros. Seamless, high-quality handoffs with context and energy. And a genuine partnership in our success. Alex (our AE) didn't make introductions and disappear, he continues tracking our progress and celebrating our wins.

Within weeks, our advisory bench was actively shaping our commercialization strategy, clinical credibility, investor narrative, and cross-border execution. That's not a service, that's a competitive advantage.

We'd recommend Connectd without hesitation to any founder who values precision, integrity, and advisors who make a real impact.

Steven Thompson, Founder & CEO, NexTrial.ai

Great mentor support from experienced board advisors which makes the transition to becoming an impactful advisor much easier. A real community of start-up companies looking for experienced professionals to steer them in the right direction.

Friendly and helpful that have linked me with the right people to support my business