About Us
Island23 is an advisory focused on trust, safety, and governance for online communities - particularly those operating at scale or in regulated environments.
OUR STORY
Built through real experience
Founded by Darren Gough after years of frontline
and leadership work in online communities.
Early
experience
Scaling communities
Industry
Leadership
Regulated
Environments
Today
Darren began his career as the first Community Manager at Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert.com, helping scale the forum to over 1.8 million highly active users. He built moderation systems, governance structures, and escalation processes to support a fast-growing community, including high-volume activity and at-risk users.
From there, his work moved into larger and more complex environments as a consultant. He has led and supported community and trust functions across global platforms and organisations, including work connected to companies such as Airbnb, where consistency, responsiveness, and user safety must operate reliably at scale.
Alongside strategic roles, Darren has contributed to the development of industry standards. He was an early member of the Online Safety Tech Industry Association (OSTIA) and the Safety Tech Network, and has worked with organisations such as Meta on community management certification. He has also represented Island23 as a speaker at industry events, including DevRelCon.
He has worked with public sector and regulated organisations, including the NHS, Public Health England, and the UK Government (DCMS). In these environments, community systems carry additional responsibility, supporting safeguarding, public accountability, and compliance under increasing scrutiny.
Island23 is a small, highly specialised team of community professionals, focused on helping organisations build systems that remain stable as they scale and come under pressure.
Early
experience
Scaling communities
Industry
Leadership
Regulated
Environments
Today
Early experience
Darren began his career as the first Community Manager at Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert.com, helping scale the forum to over 1.8 million highly active users.
He built moderation systems, governance structures, and escalation processes to support a fast-growing community, including high-volume activity and at-risk users.
Scaling communities
From there, his work moved into larger and more complex environments as a consultant.
He has led and supported community and trust functions across global platforms and organisations, including work connected to companies such as Airbnb, where consistency, responsiveness, and user safety must operate reliably at scale.
Industry leadership
Alongside strategic roles, Darren has contributed to the development of industry standards.
He was an early member of the Online Safety Tech Industry Association (OSTIA) and the Safety Tech Network, and has worked with organisations such as Meta on community management certification.
He has also represented Island23 as a speaker at industry events, including DevRelCon.
Regulated environments
He has worked with public sector and regulated organisations, including the NHS, Public Health England, and the UK Government (DCMS).
In these environments, community systems carry additional responsibility, supporting safeguarding, public accountability, and compliance under increasing scrutiny.
Today
Island23 is a small, highly specialised team of community professionals, focused on helping organisations build systems that remain stable as they scale and come under pressure.
How we work
Island23 operates as a lead advisory.
Darren sets the strategy and architecture for each engagement, bringing in a small, trusted network of specialists only where the scope requires additional depth - ensuring senior-level expertise without the overhead of a traditional agency.
Engagements are designed to identify operational risk, build systems that work in practice, and support teams through periods of growth, change, or increased scrutiny.