Governance

Disclosures, oversight, and how we manage conflicts of interest.

Trust is earned by stating things plainly. This page sets out our governance structure, the relationships we have with care providers in our corridor, and the controls that ensure those relationships don't influence rankings or recommendations.

The LWT Healthcare relationship

Akinn's strategic advisor and one of our early investors is Vinojan Thomas, who is also the Managing Director of LWT Healthcare. LWT operates care homes in the East Sussex and Kent corridor — the same geography where Akinn is launching.

This is a real conflict of interest, and we take three concrete steps to manage it:

  1. Disclose plainly on every relevant listing. Every home owned or operated by LWT Healthcare carries a clear disclosure on its listing card and detail page. The text states the relationship, the names of the people involved, and links back to this page.
  2. No ranking preference, period. The Best Match algorithm has no input for ownership, operator identity, or relationship with Akinn. The code is published in our public repository at lib/ranking.ts. LWT homes are ranked by the same logic as every other home.
  3. Editorial separation. Vinojan Thomas does not edit listings, write descriptions, set Quality Score weights, or influence which homes are included in the verified corridor.

Why we accepted this relationship anyway

A reasonable question. The answer is that Vinojan's operational expertise — running care homes day to day — is exactly the perspective Akinn needs to build a product that's useful to providers, not just families. The disclosure-and-controls approach lets us benefit from that expertise without compromising independence.

A platform with a wall around it that no operator can touch would be a worse product. A platform where an operator quietly shaped the rankings would be worse than useless. We've taken the middle path and explained it openly.

Advisory board

Akinn is building an independent advisory board, expected to formally convene once we move beyond the launch corridor. We will publish board membership on this page as appointments are made.

How conflicts are escalated

If you believe a listing on Akinn is being unfairly preferenced, demoted, or described, we want to hear about it. Email governance@akinn.co.uk. We commit to acknowledging the report within two business days and providing a written response within ten business days.

Other relationships we disclose