The person who starts a clan is the Founder and they are automatically a leader of the clan.
The one attribute of a Founder is that the can not be fired from the clan. That is their only special attribute.
All the other powers of a leader are held equally by every leader of the clan.
The power to promote/demote.
The power to hire/fire.
The power to buy clan stuff.
The power to clan build.
A clan does not need a founder to survive.
Strictly speaking it does not need a leader either but without a leader it will eventually fail as new member can not join.
As a general rule, admin should not intervene in clan founder issues and should not change or make founders for clans. It is not needed and a clan will naturally lose its founder over time and with age. Even if this has possibly happened in the past I do not see the need to do it going forward.
A clan without a leader will eventually die. Is this a normal part of evolution or a waste of time and peoples resources. If a clan is leaderless and all the clan members agree to elect a new leader then we could consider that (possibly).