Joining James on the Event Industry News podcast this week is Emma Little, CEO and founder of the free, venue-finding service, ExecSpace. Delving into the early days of the company, Emma reveals the reasons behind the business, the struggles of “starting her own company from scratch” and how to maintain the momentum a decade down the line. In what can be described as a well-populated world of venue-finding, Emma describes how she entered the scene with no experience in the industry having come from a telephone sales background: “it’s about being humble and honest enough to admit what you do know and admit what you don’t”. She reveals the main reason to set up a company was produced by essentially being a career-driven home-bird. Following other companies would likely have taken her away from Edinburgh, so, to combat the push to move to places such as London, she decided to take her career in her own hands and set up a company. This, Emma agrees, is probably a backwards way of going about it: most people come up with an idea and go on to make a business out of it; she wanted to create a business so needed an idea to follow! She goes onto explain the difficulties surrounding the geographical implications faced by the company and how the customers “forced [her] hand” to expand to companies and venues further afield than Edinburgh. Now, Emma strives to make a global brand from a Scottish-based business. The self-made CEO describes the process as “no mean feat” but since launching, she has developed a range of clients and created new jobs. She still has aspirations for the company and aims to meet each goal through hard work, technology and expansion.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.