Charlotte Rowell: Making a real difference as a Founder Associate

Charlotte studied Modern European Languages and History at Durham, and worked as an Allocation Analyst at TK Maxx, before joining Jumpstart’s April 2022 generalist programme.

After hearing the pitches of 40+ startups, she found her best match was the Founder Associate role at Zero Gravity 🚀

We caught up with Charlotte to chat about her experiences in the Founder Associate role over the past year, and to get some insight into the exciting projects you can get stuck into at a tech-for-good startup.

Hey Charlotte, thanks for chatting with us. We’d love to hear a bit more about your Jumpstart experience. Taking the leap from TK Maxx to the tech-for-good space is an interesting one, what made you want to take the plunge?

“I joined Jumpstart in January 2022 because I was looking to enter the world of startups and wanted to join a company making a real difference. I’m now working as Founder Associate (FA) at Zero Gravity, which is on a mission to make sure background no longer stands in the way of opportunity.”

Zero Gravity is a tech-for-good startup unlocking the potential of ambitious students from low-opportunity backgrounds into university, work, and life. Talent is spread evenly, but opportunity is not, and their mentorship and careers digital platform is on a mission to change that. Over the past year (2022-23), their team has grown from 10 to 23, and they were voted in the Top 50 Most Impactful Companies to Work For by Hyer.

“One year on, it’s amazing to look back on the impact we’ve had in the past year, supporting 8,000+ students into top unis and careers, building the UK’s largest social mobility scholarship fund and scaling the Zero Gravity team from 10 to 23.”

.

Amazing! And what exactly does it mean to be a Founder Associate at Zero Gravity? 

“In the simplest terms, I leverage the founder’s time, and take on some of their workload. At the start of my role, I was mainly sharing the founder’s workload, but now my role is often about anticipating what they need to do, and doing it myself before they ask!

My core responsibilities cover business strategy – overseeing the different parts of the business and monitoring how they’re performing against targets, and working with the founder on how to best move the business forward.

I also work on lots of different high-level special projects across the business. As an example, this has included spearheading the Zero Gravity internship offering, as well as running events – I recently helped organise a fundraising dinner for our scholarship programme that raised almost £250k in scholarship funding!”

At Jumpstart, we like to define a Founder Associate as the ‘right-hand person’ to the company founder, getting exposure to all aspects of the business and involvement in high-level projects – from strategy, to operations, to marketing, and much more!

Becoming an FA is the perfect role if you’re looking to:

• ✅ Broaden your skillset and gain experience in a ton of different areas
• 🚀 Take the next step in your career, and find a role that can take you anywhere
• 🤔 Learn what it’s like to be a Founder – if you’re thinking about starting your own business

Wow, organising a £250k fundraising event so early into your career is SO IMPRESSIVE – congrats!

If you had to pick, what would you say you love most about your role?

“I personally love the variety involved in my day-to-day role. In fast-paced, high-growth startup fashion, my priorities and focuses change with the businesses, and the amount of exposure across the suite of business activities which comes with that is really cool.”

.

Really cool, thanks so much for sharing your experience with us.

Last question from us – looking back on your time as an FA over the past year, what would you say are the main characteristics or skills that make a successful FA? 

“You definitely need to be super organised, proactive and great at project management. 

And I’d also say you need to enjoy failing and learning fast; a Founder Associate can’t have too much ego, you have to be willing to throw things out there and just see what sticks, and enjoy the process of getting things wrong, getting feedback, and learning”

.

If you’re keen to accelerate your career and make an impact like Charlotte in a Founder Associate role, apply now for our next generalist cohort! ✍️