From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfounding fatherˌfounding ˈfather noun [countable] START something/MAKE something STARTsomeone who begins something such as a new way of thinking, or a new organizationfounding father of Saint Basil, one of the founding fathers of the Greek Orthodox Church
Examples from the Corpus
founding father• And a neighborhood in Southern California went looking for a corporate sponsor to become its nominal founding father.• I think the founding father saw to it that no-one else shared centre stage.founding father of• Brooks Stevens was a founding father of industrial design. 