Transparency on the operating model. Read it, judge it, and tell us if you think we have it wrong.
IRC is operated by Outbreach. Outbreach is an incident response and recovery firm based in London, founded by Dominic Aslan, who is also the owner of the IRC brand. The operating partnership means Outbreach runs the day-to-day of IRC: events, the website, member communications, the application flow, and the Editorial Committee secretariat.
Outbreach is the founding partner. It funds the relaunch, provides the operating team, and underwrites the cost of the Boardroom and Practitioner Forums in year one.
It matters because an IR firm operating a global community of practice has obvious conflict-of-interest risks. We are choosing to disclose those risks in detail, build editorial safeguards into the model, and invite scrutiny on both.
The alternatives we considered: running IRC as a fully independent body with no operating partner (too slow to get off the ground), partnering with a neutral industry association (no good candidate at the global scale we want), or running it as a closed Outbreach-branded community (defeats the point). The operating-partner model with disclosed founding partners is the structure we landed on.
A small group of IR firms is being assembled as founding partners for the 2026 relaunch. Founding partners contribute funding, content, and time. The list will be published in full on the home page and on this disclosure page as partners confirm.
Founding partner conversations are happening now. The first announcements are expected before the Boardroom Forum invitations go out.
The relaunched IRC is funded by Outbreach as operating partner plus contributions from founding partners. No member fees apply at any tier in year one. The Boardroom Forum is unfunded by its members. The Practitioner Forum is unfunded by its members. Open and Affiliate tiers are free.
Year two introduces a paid Partner Firm tier as part of the Partners Forum, alongside the Founding Partner tier. Member fees for Practitioner Membership are not currently planned.
This is the most important part of the disclosure.
The Editorial Committee is independent of the operating partner and the Partners Forum.
The Editorial Committee curates the Resources library, decides which Practitioner Runbooks publish, sets the house style, and reviews submissions on merit. The operating partner does not get a vote. Founding partners do not get a vote. Partner Firms (from year two) do not get a vote.
The committee is staffed by Practitioner Members, paid an honorarium per cycle of work. The committee chair rotates annually. Committee membership is published on the Editorial Committee page once seated.
If a contribution comes from a Founding Partner firm or from an Outbreach employee, the committee treats it with the same review process as any other submission. Author attribution is to the individual, not the employer.
From year two, all Partner Firms (and Founding Partners by extension) operate under a published Code of Conduct. The first draft is being written with founding partner input and will be published before the year two intake. It covers:
Outbreach is named as operating partner and founding partner. The relationship is disclosed on the home page, on this page, and in the footer of every page. Outbreach product names are not used anywhere in IRC content under any circumstances. IRC is the convening voice in all member-facing materials.
Tell us. Email hello@incidentresponse.com with what you think is missing, weak, or worth challenging. We will respond in writing and update the disclosure where the challenge stands up.
Community calls coming up, new resources published, and what we're seeing across the membership.
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