Social Founders: Making Succession Successful
Guest Blog for Social Founders, by Philip Kirkpatrick, Partner, Bates Wells

Philip Kirkpatrick is a partner at charity law firm, Bates Wells. Philip has over 25 years’ experience advising charities and not-for-profits. He has specialist expertise advising purpose-driven founders and businesses across a range of sectors; helping to structure new ventures and manage difficult commercial and governance issues. Philip is recognised by leading legal directories, Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners.

Philip was a guest speaker at our Social Founders Forum on 'Founder Transition and Succession' in September 2025.

JANE: Mary Poppins, how long will you stay?

MARY POPPINS: We'll see.

MICHAEL: You won't leave us, will you, Mary Poppins?

MARY POPPINS: I'll stay until the wind changes.

One thing you can be sure of in life, alongside death and taxes, is that the wind will change.

For most social founders, whose purpose is often to achieve change, deciding when the wind has changed so that it’s time to move on is notoriously difficult.

There are all kinds of social businesses, from charities to B-Corporations, and the succession considerations for their founders are different. In particular, the considerations are very different for a founder whose wealth is tied up in the enterprise and who expects a financial return on exit. So, this article is concerned with founders of non-profit enterprises. Non-profits and their founders also happen to be the organisations and people that my colleagues and I most regularly advise. However, all social founders will have one thing in common: they are strongly motivated by purpose and they will want what they have built to succeed beyond their departure.

We are consulted at all parts of an organisation’s life cycle, from setting it up to winding it up. We are also consulted far too often about internal disputes, including with founders. In such disputes, the form and structure of the organisation are vital considerations. Perhaps the most common structure we see with founder-led non-profits
(and especially charities) is a company limited by guarantee in which there is a board of directors that doesn’t include the founder; where the founder is the CEO; and where either the directors are the members of the organisation or everyone thinks they are, or no one has a clue who the members are or even that members exist. The latter is surprisingly common.

Membership is often a key consideration in these disputes. It is the members of an
organisation, especially a company, who have ultimate power. In particular, they have the power to appoint and remove the board, to change the constitution and to wind up the organisation. A founder who has no control at board level (which is completely normal in charities) and no control at member level (also very common), is in a vulnerable position. Their protection lies in their employment status, in their capabilities and in the force of their personality. When things go wrong, the founder can find themselves pitted against a board that has decided succession can’t happen soon enough.

Probably the main reason we are asked to advise on founder removal is that the skills needed to set something up and lead it in its start-up phase are not the same skills as are needed to lead it in its steady state phase and to manage the next phase of growth. All good founders have the first set of skills but not all of them have the second.

We have on numerous occasions advised boards on removing founder CEOs whom they think have, let’s say it politely, outgrown their role. We’ve also used membership powers to protect founder CEOs who have fallen out with their boards, using control at the membership level to replace board members or appoint additional ones. That is not straightforward in charities because members of charities will normally hold their rights as fiduciaries, meaning that they have to be exercised in the interests of furthering the charity’s purposes and not for the member’s own benefit.

Those responsible for governing and managing social organisations, both boards and CEOs, should be thinking regularly about succession at both board and management
level, and those with a powerful social founder in the CEO role are no different; it’s just that it might be more awkward for all concerned to have the discussion. It shouldn’t be so hard, though; everyone knows change must happen and loss of a dynamic and driven founder CEO should be on the risk register already.

Also, social organisations should ideally have a plan for how to bring operations to an end in the case of a catastrophic event or if funding declines too far (a corporate ‘living will’). If one can contemplate the end of the organisation, one should be able to contemplate the end of the founder’s role.

The departure of a founder CEO may present all sorts of risks to an organisation. Those risks are exacerbated if the founder remains the driving force behind the organisation, is the main inspiration behind its vision and strategy, commands strong loyalty from staff, and is the main reason why funders and other stakeholders trust the organisation.

A well-balanced and governed organisation that has moved, or is moving, beyond start-up phase will try to address those risks by building the right team around the founder CEO, widening and strengthening relationships with stakeholders and ensuring that founder control is dissipated and founder dependence reduced so that they are not so exposed in case of the founder’s sudden loss.

It is far from unusual that a founder also has a strong instinct to control, and it may
make them feel very vulnerable to see their power dissipated. It therefore needs to be handled very sensitively. However, a really good leader who is able to lead an organisation into a sustainable future beyond their involvement, should be able to overcome such anxiety and, in doing so, maintain and perhaps enhance their authority and usefulness.

For a founder CEO who cannot control board appointments and removals, engaging selflessly in such a process may also be the best way of ensuring that the how and when of inevitable change are matters of their choice. Their support for and engagement in the process should give confidence to the board and should also enable them to select and have confidence in the team that is being put in place around them.

As it comes towards the time that the wind will change, the founder can try to identify and develop their likely successor, either from within the team or from outside the
organisation. In doing that, what should they be looking for in a successor? If looking for someone like themselves, they might as well look in the mirror. Instead, I think they should be considering what skills and personality type are needed to lead the organisation into the next phase of its life when it has grown beyond the founder or the founder has grown beyond it.

There can be a temptation to try to find someone who will carry on running the organisation exactly as the founder left off. Most founders start organisations because they have worked out a better, or at least different, way of achieving a purpose. I
recommend not confusing method with purpose. Founders who are letting go of an
organisation need to be able to let go of the method. What matters is achieving the purpose, far more than how it is achieved. So, founders should make that the priority - look for who and what will best achieve the purpose, rather than trying to tie the future of the organisation to the way they’ve always done it.

The reality is that an organisation will develop naturally in different ways after a founder has left. Some founders will want to maintain their influence by joining the board instead, or taking on an ambassadorial role. Perhaps it can work. However, I think it can most often lead to tensions and dissatisfaction both on the part of the founder and their
successor.

Most founders would find it useful to have a mentor to help them through this difficult transition. No doubt there are potential mentors aplenty among members of the Social Founders network. A good conversation for the Chair and founder CEO to have.

To protect both the founder CEO’s position and the organisation, it is vital to develop a good and trusting relationship with the board, respecting the board’s role, responsibilities and liabilities. It is important to engage them (some non-profit boards are woefully disengaged) and ensure they have the right information and take the time to understand the organisation properly and to fulfil their functions. A disengaged board can wake up to unexpected problems in an organisation with a very sore head and take this out on the organisation’s leadership.

Part of that engagement would ideally involve setting clear goals and ensuring they,
and the founder CEO’s performance, are regularly reviewed. That can so easily be overlooked with a founder, with the board often just thinking of it as the founder’s organisation and not seeing the need for clarity about such matters. Also often overlooked (perhaps because they weren’t in place when the founder started the organisation) are a good employment contract and job description.

Preparing to set sail is probably easier than deciding when the wind is right to do so. It is better that the founder recognises that time before those around them do, enabling them to choose to go well and leave the organisation ready and well placed for its next stage of development.

BERT: It's tonight, isn't it?

MARY POPPINS: Yes, Bert.

BERT: Well, goodbye then, Mary.

MARY POPPINS: Goodbye, Bert. Look after yourself.

There, practically perfect, and I hope it remains so.

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Philip Kirkpatrick is a partner in the Charity and Social Enterprise Department at the law firm Bates Wells: www.bateswells.co.uk.

Philip was a guest speaker at our Social Founders Forum on Founder Transition and Succession in September 2025, alongside Alex Bain, Founder & ex-CEO, Football Journeys; Carlos Salvador Joao, Alex's successor CEO at Football Journeys, and Iona Lawrence, Co-Founder of The Decelerator, and previous founding CEO of the Jo Cox Foundation.

Social Founders extends heartfelt thanks to Bates Wells for their support for our Forum, and for Philip's contribution as our guest speaker and author of this blog.

We look forward to your comments below, and please do share this blog widely.