The founders were originally the fourteen companies who sponsored the revised consititution in 1975 and took over the management of the school from the church. Provision exists for additional sponsors to be added, and in 1995 the number of Founders rose to eighteen. The School's Constitution requires that between five and eight Founder Companies are, at any one time, represented on the Board of Governors. Each elected Founder Governor serves for a two-year term, but may be nominated for re-election at a Founders' AGM. The actual general Governance of the School is handled by the Board of Governors which includes persons other than those representing the Founders. The current Founder Companies are:
- Aluminium Bahrain
- Arab Banking Corporation
- Bahrain Petroleum Co
- British Airways PLC
- Cable & Wireless (Middle East) E.C.
- Davis Langdon Arabian Gulf
- Ernst & Young
- Gulf Aluminium Rolling Mill Co. B.S.C.
- Gulf Air
- Gulf International Bank B.S.C.
- HSBC Bank (Middle East)
- Investcorp
- Middle East Navigation Aids Services
- SERCO-IAL Limited
- Standard Chartered Bank
- Trowers & Hamlins
- Unilever Bahrain Co. WLL
- Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Holdings WLL