Debrief from a great Startup Leadership Summit 2024

It was a true pleasure to connect with the startup community and bring research into play at the Startup Leadership Summit on 5. November - and learn from founders and leaders with real life experience on leadership in startups. CBS Leadership Centre and the Founder to Leader programme co-hosted the event.

We had a fully packed programme with inspiring presentations of some of the most recent hashtag#research that has come out of Copenhagen Business School in this area. 

Associate Professor Vera Rocha talked about her brand new research on the concept of Affiliation-Based Hiring (ABH if you fancy abreviations;-) which relates to how founders hire people they already know - and the implications of doing so. In her study, Vera has found that this tactic has important consequences for startup performance and may affect the success of the firm. For example, hiring former coworkers does not have the same benefits as hiring former schoolmates. This research is hot of the press and was published only last month in Strategic Management Journal. Curious to know more? Follow this link: https://lnkd.in/dNRqEUyF

Vera also touched upon gender-related issues in startups. For example, she has found that these hiring tactics tend to reduce demographic hashtag#diversity in the firm, which may help explain why startups have difficulty in attracting female employees...

Assistant professor Pernille Steen Pedersen presented insights from her work on exploring the stress that entrepreneurs can experience, among others due to fear of being exposed and not living up to expectations from themselves and others – and the difficulties in balancing personal life and wellbeing with company needs and challenges. Pernille presented the five capabilities that she has identified as important for a healthy transition from being a founder to becoming a leader. One is about the capability of stepping up as a leader to endure opposition. Be at peace with the fact that not everyone has to like you but they need to respect you.

We also had the great pleasure to hear from inspirational founder leaders. Nadia Jun (Duffbeauty), Frederik Hedelund (Temply) and Frederikke Antonie Schmidt (roccamore) shared honest reflections about how to manage the leadership role and stay true to yourself in conversations with Marianne Lubanski and Yohanna Gustavsson . 

Martin Glesner (Apoteka), Brian Brorsbøl (Apoteka) and Gustav Frederik Thybo (Flyhjælp) shared learnings with Eva Fog Bruun from their personal experiences on what happens when the company grows and the founder hands over leadership responsibility to a new CEO to take the company to the next level. When is the right time, what is challenging and what works well? 

A BIG thank you to the Founder to Leader programme and Morten Mommsen for supporting the efforts of bringing leadership into the startup conversation. 

And to Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship for great collaboration on this important and ever-evolving agenda. Already looking forward to the Startup Leadership Summit in 2025!