Exclusive: Rent the Runway cofounder Jenn Hyman is taking over IPO-bound Babylist as it nears $1 billion in revenue

For nearly two decades Jenn Hyman and Natalie Gordon have been on parallel tracks. Hyman cofounded the clothing rental service Rent the Runway 18 years ago and took it public, before stepping down about two months ago. Gordon, for 15 years, has been building the baby registry service Babylist, which has quietly come to dominate its category and is on track for $1 billion in revenue and an IPO.

“There’s very few people who can truly understand the journey that I’ve been on over the past decade and a half of my life, and Natalie’s one of them,” Hyman says.

Now, the pair’s paths are officially intersecting. Gordon will step down as CEO of Babylist and Hyman, in her first post–Rent the Runway role, will take over as CEO, effective Sept. 9. Gordon will become executive chair of Babylist.

It’s a rare CEO transition between founders—and especially between female founders of separate businesses.

Gordon and Hyman only met for the first time last fall, and Hyman joined the Babylist board in January. When she announced her departure from Rent the Runway in May, Hyman says she hadn’t decided on accepting this job yet. “The decision to leave Rent the Runway was the most enormous decision of my life, and it was a separate decision,” she says. “I knew that I’m a builder—there was no concept in my mind that there wasn’t going to be a next chapter.”

While both Gordon and Hyman were coming up as founders at the same time, they had very different experiences. Rent the Runway was a media........

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