FounderFuel Show: Life after founderhood - from founder-CEO to hired-CEO, with Jordan Schlipf
You’re invited to FounderFuel LIVE where we’ll be in conversation with CEO of Cowshed, Jordan Schlipf on life after founderhood - from founder-CEO to hired-CEO.
Jordan has been the founder, the venture-builder, the VC and is now the “hired gun” CEO of British spa brand Cowshed. After numerous ventures as a founder (including one Dragon’s Den TV appearance) he went on to cofound Startup bootcamp - supporting 1600+ startups around the world. In 2025, he stepped in as the hired-CEO at Cowshed, the spa brand of Soho House. So what has he learned along the way, and how does life as a hired-CEO differ to life as a founder-CEO? In this AMA conversation, we’ll be talking about life after founderhood, the differences he’s experiencing as a hired-CEO versus his founder-CEO days, and what that means for his own performance and wellbeing.
As always with our founder-only sessions, we’ll be keeping it real - exploring the highs, the lows and the lessons along the way. Join this session to hear the candid stories and ask your questions of Jordan.
More about Jordan
Jordan is a serial tech founder, early-stage investor, and the CEO of Cowshed, a British beauty brand undergoing a full-scale-up push. He previously co-founded Rainmaking, a global venture-building and corporate innovation firm, and Startupbootcamp, one of the world’s largest accelerator networks with more than 1,600 early-stage investments. A former Venture Partner at Vectr Ventures and an entrepreneurship lecturer at Oxford and UCL, Jordan has spent his career building companies from scratch, partnering with corporates to de-risk innovation, and backing founders across Europe, Asia, and the US.
More about FounderFuel LIVE
FounderFuel LIVE is all about fuel for life and leading as a founder: Being an entrepreneur is a rollercoaster ride - physically, emotionally, and cognitively - which is why 92% of founders say that resilience is the number one requirement. In these founder-only events we talk to leading experts, the world’s peak-performers, and sit down for deep and real conversations with inspiring founders - all to surface knowledge and inspiration that fuels you to thrive on the journey that is founderhood.
Find our FounderFuel LIVE events line up here
The host of this episode will be Christina Richardson, who has made it her mission to fuel the humans behind the startups and scaleups through her work at UCL School of Management and Foundology.
Christina led the original research that lifted the lid on founder-health, starting debates in Westminster on the topic, then founded Foundology to do something about it. Now hundreds of founders all over the world are in the FounderFuel family, where they coach and support each other every month in group-coaching FounderCircles - learning from each other, problem-solving together and developing as scaling leaders. Prior to this, she co-founded two technology start-ups herself so knows first-hand what it is like on the roller-coaster. Her first technology business launched in 2012 and was acquired by Enterprise Nation in 2015; her second was a Cannes Lions Innovation award winner and used by brands like Samsung, Vodafone and Expedia.