School of Founders

IESE was founded in 1958 by and for entrepreneurs. The School of Founders (SoF) connects with this history, with a mission to support entrepreneurs in building significant businesses that make a positive impact in their fields. We are on this mission for three reasons:

Reason 1. Helping entrepreneurs to solve meaningful problems

We need the entrepreneurial spirit to tackle today’s most pressing issues, including inequality, poverty and climate change. Unfortunately, over ninety percent of new businesses fail to scale, which means they fail to make a significant impact on the problem that they set out to solve. We created the SoF to increase these odds. Our educational programs help entrepreneurs build large and financially solid companies that achieve the large-scale impact they aspire to.

Reason 2. Lightening the load and lifting the spirit of entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurial journey is exceptionally challenging. Anxiety, stress, and insecurities are commonplace among founders. The SoF wants to ease this burden by providing a supportive space to connect with other founders, clarify goals and priorities, discover tools and frameworks, and find the inspiration to dream big.

Reason 3. Converting founders into effective leaders

IESE’s mission is to develop leaders who have a deep, positive, and lasting impact on people, companies, and society. The SoF was created in this same spirit. We help entrepreneurs become better, more conscious leaders and position them to achieve great things. Effective leadership is requisite for scaling.

• Peer Councils – We offer facilitated and fully confidential peer coaching groups to provide support and guidance for founders with their most relevant challenges and opportunities.
• Coaching – The IESE Coaching Unit offers an exceptional network of executive coaches, who bring the breadth of their experience and the diversity of their nationalities and cultures to the process of coaching entrepreneurs. The SoF also works in tight collaboration with Jerry Colonna’s coaching firm Reboot.
• Partner to venture capital firms – We collaborate with venture capital firms that provide professional development programs from the SoF to their portfolio companies. IESE’s venture capital fund, FINAVES, is one of our partners.
• Mentoring - WeGrow, an initiative of IESE’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center, is a community of high-potential entrepreneurs and prestigious mentors dedicated to supporting businesses who believe in having a positive impact on business and society.
• Focused programs – IESE offers many focused programs that provide a deep-dive into the specific competencies and sectors that relate to common scaling challenges.
• Research and publications – The SoF, in collaboration with IESE’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center, conducts research on the foundations of scaling, the latest frameworks and tools, and the most effective methodologies for teaching entrepreneurs.