Emma Journey

Emma Harrison grew up in Sheffield, attending a local comprehensive school where she demonstrated her entrepreneurial flair by running an illegal tuck shop. By her own admission Emma was a rebel at school and did not achieve fantastic exam results.

"I made a terrible mess of my A Levels. I suppose I didn't really have any strong vision of what I wanted to do in life. I was supposedly a bright girl and the school had me down to be a doctor, but I hated the site of blood and was terribly squeamish. What I really wanted to do was engineering but that wasn't really acceptable at school at the time. Girls didn't become engineers then."

Despite this barrier, Emma got an engineering job anyway and decided that she wanted to go back to college to achieve the qualifications necessary to be admitted onto an engineering course. Within a year, armed with a Ordinary National Diploma in Engineering, she made a trip to Bradford University.

"I went up to Bradford University on a motorbike on the back roads. I didn't have an appointment and I hadn't filled in the UCCA University application form. I got there and hid my helmet and boots in the ladies toilets, had a wash, put my shoes on and went to talk to people in the engineering department. It worked. On the way home I stopped in at British Steel and found the man responsible for allocating sponsorship to students. By the end of the day I had a place at university and I was getting paid by British Steel."

While Emma was at University, her father founded the Industrial Training Agency to provide training to those made unemployed by the closure of the local steel works. After graduating, Emma was handed the reins of the business by her father, who moved to Germany, and within a year it was turning over £1million. Emma's father returned however, and while Emma was keen to expand the business further, her father wanted to consolidate to fund his retirement. Emma took the decision to walk away from the business and start again from scratch.

A4e was founded and Emma immediately set out to diversify the business, realising that her new organisation could deliver training in any field. She also followed the advice that she frequently gives to entrepreneurs, "The three things you must do to improve your business are marketing, marketing, marketing."

Emma changed the way A4e conducted its business in 1993 advising the government to pay for output rather than input, saying "Pay me for what I do, for what we achieve." Emma believes this set the ball rolling and expansion quickly followed.

Emma surrounded herself with people that shared her business and social vision and took the innovative step of appointing Mark Lovell, a former graduate trainee, as CEO  in 1996 to take on the responsibility of running A4e. Emma is still involved with A4e on a day to day basis, focusing on shaping the vision, values and direction of the company and she has led A4e's expansion into numerous new delivery areas and into many international markets.

Emma's core values remain the same though. "We'll do anything that will improve people's lives but more importantly we won't do anything that won't"