Social Founders Forum | Founder Transition & Succession

​We’re excited to announce our next in-person Social Founders Forum on 24 September 2025, 9.30am-2.30pm, in London.

​Overview

​Our Forum theme is Founder Transition and Succession

​How do we adapt, change our roles and teams? How and when do we decide to step down? How do we ‘leave well’?

​We know this is a huge challenge for us as social founders, and many of you have asked us to discuss this.

​We’ll be joined by fascinating social founder speakers, who will share their experience of transition and succession. We’ll also want to hear from YOU, both engaging with our speakers, and in our round table discussions with fellow founders. 

​Our Speakers

​Iona Lawrence is co-founder and currently the Chief Deceleration Officer at The Decelerator where she leads a small team with big ambitions to help civil society navigate transitions with care, integrity, and purpose-whether closing programmes, winding up organisations, enabling leadership transitions and all the other endings involved in organisational lifecycles. Previously Iona led initiatives across civil society, from co-founding The Jo Cox Foundation and securing the UK’s first Minister for Loneliness to shaping refugee policy with Safe Passage. 

​Alex Baine has worked in the social entrepreneurship and the NGO sector since 2006, developing and managing social impact projects in London, Tokyo and Mumbai. When returning to the UK in 2011, Alex saw an opportunity to put his experience to good use and set up Football Journeys (FJ). FJ is a charity that brings young people from different communities together to share new experiences, find common ground and overcome stereotypes through the language of film and the love of football. Alex is now studying to become a Restorative Approaches Practitioner and takes care of his two young children who inspire and exhaust him every day.

​Alex will be in discussion with Carlos Salvador Joao, the current CEO. Carlos has an extensive track record in social enterprise, spending 14 years developing social outreach agendas for NGOs across a multitude of sectors and disciplines, as well as consulting for major brands. Carlos leads Football Journeys in ensuring its next phase of growth reaches as many young people as possible across London boroughs and beyond. He brings to the role his wealth of experience across strategy, business development, marketing, communications and working with young people from minoritised backgrounds.

​Michelle Morgan is an award-winning founder and social entrepreneur. She co-founded Livity, the pioneering youth marketing agency created to benefit the lives of young people through the power of brands, and is co-founder of Pjoys, the purpose-led sleepwear brand making mental health an everyday conversation. Today she combines her experience as a founder, board advisor, trainer and advocate to champion leadership, social impact and wellbeing.Michelle chairs DARE Pictures and has been honored with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise and multiple Entrepreneur of the Year titles.

​Schedule

​At 9.30am we’ll kick off with coffee and pastries from an East London social enterprise bakery, for a 10:00 prompt start.

​At 13:00 we’ll have a delicious British Bangladeshi lunch prepared by a leading local, women-led collective, with networking time with your fellow Social Founders until 14.30.

​For those interested, we’ll be sure to organise a tour of the Studios for you after lunch, and a visit to their exhibition. 

​And if you want an extra bit of East End creativity in the afternoon post-event, the Young V&A Museum is across the road, which we’d highly recommend.

​Our Partners

​We’re pleased to be running our Forum in partnership with CIVA, the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action.

​Location

​We're excited to be hosted on this occasion by the creative charity Proposition Studios, situated in a dynamic and innovative area of London, Bethnal Green, 15 minutes from Oxford Circus on the Central Line. With the studios only a few steps aways from the tube station.

​Ticket price: £40
Income generated from ticket sales goes towards the cost of the event, venue, food and admin. We cannot offer refunds after 7th September. Book now to be sure of a place! We can’t wait to see you there.