However comfy it is sitting behind your desk - with your screen in front of you - thinking that all the answers are there - STOP.

I was on the road last week - and learnt so much that my head was buzzing - my brain a little fried and I was so excited by the ideas I found that I could hardly swallow my food!

Now that would not have happened sitting behind my desk - never has - never will.

Just imagine - I was invited to the Gherkin Building in London - to listen to Lord Foster who designed it and John Major (ex prime minister) talk about globalisation. I arrived aroun..View Complete Post

I get asked all the time how I got started in Business - and how I manage to keep growing a business. There are so many things - having a powerful vision and superb people are key.

There is something else... The public/customers/ the local community have to know what you do. There is no magic to this - a simple way is to get yourself in the papers on the radio and on TV.

Another way is to be active in your local community - meet loads of people and promote what you do.

The other day - the age old question of why A4e has not done a UK wide TV promotion came up at a ge..View Complete Post

Great fun last week - A4e was all over the Uk serious news. The Financial Times, Newsnight, Five Live and on and on. (Well done to everyone involved)

It was like the world woke up to the work we have been doing around the world 'improving people's lives.' For twenty years we have been banging a drum - saying that there has to be a better way to support people who are excluded from society. That Governments should work with organisations to deliver Front Line Public Services. That these organisations should be the ones that can make a difference - and that their status - voluntary, c..View Complete Post

A strange one yesterday - I was asked to give a lunchtime talk to Pro-Sheffield - a gathering of the senior people invloved in the 'professions.' So I was faced with a room full of lawyers, accountants, bankers and financial advisors.

As an entrepreneur this was like facing my worst nightmare! For years I have collectively called this bunch the 'forces of evil' - the people that have the ability to crush the spirit of aspiring entrepreneurs - the people who have the ability to make entrepreneurs tremble and weep in the face of complex explanations and incomprehensible documents.View Complete Post

Strange thing... I meet plenty of people who tell me they read my blog - I then wonder why they hadn't sent me an email to let me know - and to give me their thoughts on the things I bang on about.

Quite a few people tell me before they joined the company they did their research and read my blogs. They were inspired by the blogs and did what they could to get through interviews etc so they could join in with A4e.

I am surprised that these people don't let me know.

I think it is the pedestal thing again - I think that even though I think I am just Emma ..View Complete Post

Just had a great weekend away with friends - celebrating a 40th birthday. A real treat - no kids - quirky hotel near Hull - lots of laughs.

They are my very good friends, so you talk about anything and no one is on their best behaviour. So... you start to notice their peculiarities - especially amongst the men. It became obvious that two of my male friends are permanently competing. It really is rather funny. Little comments, postures - even charades had a serious element.

I started to laugh and point it out - some other guys in the gang said 'yeah yeah its the alp..View Complete Post

So - can't help myself - see a problem - work out how to fix it - get some other poor suckers involved and hey presto a year down the line and something great happens.

Remember i spent ten days in Dagenham as a 'secret millionaire' - seeing who I could help - realising yet again that there are fantastic charities out there doing amazing work - who are forever getting into financial trouble because they don't have all the stuff that big organisations take for granted. 

Thus the idea for the Foundation was born - and now it is alive and kicking. Helping and supp..View Complete Post

At the beginning of the week i was lucky enough to be visited by over 300 of the staff from A4e (Most of them  - new starters at A4e). They all came to my home for my regular event called 'In conversation.'

People from several different countries all getting togther to hear my vision for A4e - the story of where the company has come from and the plans for the future laid out by Bob Martin (our Group CEO).

I told them of when I started back in 1987 - with less than zero money - and how after non stop working - late nights - scary decisons - being brave when I felt weedy..View Complete Post

Hi -  

Just thought I should record something special - my Dad died a couple of days ago. No - don't get upset for me - he has had a great life - and he had been very ill for a long time. He was 86 and boy had he lived...

My Dad started the original business from which A4e sprung from. He created a company relatively late in his life called the Industrial Training Agency. When I graduated in 1987 as a Mechanical Engineer Dad asked me to come and help him run the company. It was a relatively small outfit - but it was where many of us who still work at A4e ..View Complete Post

I have had an amazing couple of weeks.

In my usual fashion - there was i worrying how I was going to get through the appointments racked up in my diary - not realising that I was about to embark on two cracking weeks.

Last Saturday i went to Derby Univeristy - to their gobsmacking Buxton Campus  - to recieve an Honourary Doctorate. There was I  - the naughty girl from school surrounded by very smart people - being held up as an example of good stuff. Fantastic.

The best bit was sitting on the stage as the graduates walked by to collect their degr..View Complete Post

Monday today - quite quiet for me. Not too many meetings - no journeys to make. Very nice. Aaaaahhh - a bit of peace....

Not for long...

Tomorrow and Wednesday are my 'In conversation with Emma' Days.

What on earth are they you might be asking?

Well - I think they are a little stroke of genius. Remembering right back to when my company was really small - just a handful of people - and all the chats we had - and the fact that so many ideas came from the casual conversations and simply bumping into each other over a coffee - how do you still get ..View Complete Post

Just imagine - ten years ago - I might want some thoughts on a subject - and did not know who to turn to. Perhaps I had already heard the thoughts of everyone I knew and anyone I did not know wanted to charge me for sharing their thoughts. (Yes - I have used consultants and not briefed them properly  - or they were plain rubbish - and ended up with a meaningless document that has done nothing to improve the state of my knowledge or even worse not given me any ideas.)  Ten years ago - I might want to have a chunter about something - and I would have to pay for printe..View Complete Post

Just been doing a bit of research on the web - tyring to work out 'what sort of organisation a4e is!'

Twenty years since I started - and I am still not sure...

This all has to do with when I meet some people in business and other entrepreneurs. I often find myself feeling I am talking a different language. Somewhere we misunderstand each other. I am sure that when they ask me what we do - and my reply is 'improve people's lives' - they think me quite mad and then their next thought is that A4e must be a charity. They then go on to discover that A4e is a s..View Complete Post

Just got back from South Africa - where i spent an amazing week meeting amazing people.

I was invited to join a group of women known collectively as the 'Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World.' South Africa was to be the place where they formally inducted me into their gang. Crikey - a cracking offer - and very humbling.

A group of 300 women who between them have built businesses that turnover $255 Billion and employ more than 500,000 people. Their passion for what they do and their love of life was evident. For me the most remarkable thing was the wake up call to meet wo..View Complete Post

I like many others was fooled into thinking that Global Warming meant the UK was going to get warmer - and that my romantic notions of a summer spent in the UK was finally going to come true in all its romping through the meadows, picniking, ice-creamy, sand on feet, cup of tea, scones, ancient yawn monuments way. No chance - there has been so much rain that even I have had to let the children watch day-time tv.  (The watching of day time telly is my personal sign that things are at an all time low. In my opinion when daytime telly becomes a part of your life there is no where els..View Complete Post

Last week I visited Rochester Prison - Young Offenders institute. (Young Men 18-21)

Rochester is the original Borstal - a large estate of mixed buildings - including the classic prisons that you see on the TV.

Going through the gate - I was there to meet with some of the young men that are undergoing training programmes led by A4e staff. The lads were great - we chatted one to one - they really wanted to find a way to get straight. So many things would have to go right for this to happen. Job, housing, education, straight friends, straight parents, good role models, sta..View Complete Post

Felt it only right to do a bit of a catch up for my faithful blog readers. Naughty me - I have been residing too much in the real world and have not paid due attention to my virtual presence!

Sometimes we can all become a slave to our diaries - each week thinking if I can just get to the end of this week then next week I will take charge of my time. It is a bit like  a diet - always planning it to start on Mondays.

Oh well - it sometimes takes others to point out how we are spending our time.

I have a bit of a poorly back - so I have a sports massage once a..View Complete Post

Heard a few good things the other day - at the IOD conference  - yes it was a very good day - I keep referring to the things I learnt  - I can recommend it.

First up was Miles Templeman (the Director General) - he was talking about when things go wrong.

In Business - Don't hide failure - don't reward failure.

Admit when things go wrong - say what you are doing to sort. This will give short term pain but you will get long term trust. Good stuff - honest - I liked his thoughts.

Then Ranulph Fiennes (the explorer)- on what to do when you get a bad appl..View Complete Post

I was at the IOD conference t'other day.

They had a session on companies with a conscience - it was well done - some great speakers who run 'sorted' companies.

One guy came out with something that I remembered - 'A Business is legally a person and a person without a conscience is a pyschopath'

Sort of enough said really!

Anyway - the chat turned to going green - and what companies could do to make a difference.

The best thing I heard ( instead of all the fancy words normally said by people who have made the whole green thing their living) - do some gr..View Complete Post

Busy busy busy - not posted for a while - sorry.

Come back from a holiday full of new energy - think you are a super hero and next thing you know you have done several months work in a few weeks.

I now realise that I am not a super hero - and that I am ready for another break already!

My busy weeks have been fascinating weeks - someone just looking at the appts in my diary might think it all sounds glam - no chance...

Interviews with journalists, dinner with Mervyn King (Gov. of the Bank of England), A4e's stunning management conference(300 people from a..View Complete Post