Founder influence, defined and measured
Lumenary's classification identifies companies where founders and founding families continue to shape decisions, and applies that classification consistently across a global listed universe.
What founder-led means
Founder-led is broader than founder-CEO. Lumenary assesses each company in its universe for the continuing influence of its founders or founding family, drawing on company filings, exchange data and regulatory sources. The assessment looks across three dimensions.
- Leadership. The founder’s continuing part in how the company is led.
- Governance. Founder or family involvement in how the company is overseen.
- Ownership. The alignment of the founder or family with other shareholders.
Universe
listed companies screened globally across all capitalisation bands
companies classified founder-led, diversified across capitalisations, regions and sectors
countries represented in the 2026 founder-led universe, across 11 sectors
The flagship Solactive Lumenary Global Founders Index applies the classification across all capitalisations; the full classification also supports research coverage and custom index work.
Review cadence
The classification is refreshed annually to reflect listings, delistings, benchmark membership and changes in founder influence, so the framework is assessed against an evolving universe rather than a fixed historical sample. Material changes to the framework are recorded in the change log below.
Index family lenses
Founder influence
The core classification: companies where founders or founding families continue to shape ownership, governance or leadership. Underlies every index in the family.
Governance
Extensions of the framework examining board structure, incentive design and control.
Change log
| Version | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1.6 | July 2026 | Further expansion of jurisdiction coverage. |
| 1.0 | January 2026 | Initial public release of the Lumenary Founder-Led Classification Framework summary, as applied in The Founder Effect Annual Report 2026 and the initial index family. |