60 Seconds With … Emma Sinclair MBE, co-founder of EnterpriseJungle and the youngest to IPO in the UK
Meet Emma Sinclair, the co-founder of EnterpriseJungle and the youngest ever person to IPO a company in the UK at the age of 29.
In one sentence, what does your company do? We built an HR solution called EnterpriseAlumni by EnterpriseJungle, which helps large enterprises manage alumni and retirees to increase talent pools and reduce internal costs.
Where are you based? London – with regular visits to California.
How did the idea come about? It was a co-innovation with our customer. SAP HR drafted us in to solve a pain point: the problem of how to better engage with their alumni. It was their belief and requirement this solution should be fully integrated into their technology ecosystem (as opposed to a standalone app) and products on the market were simply not able to do this for them. We realised, when we built the product, that this issue of better engaging with alumni wasn’t limited to SAP but was in fact a global corporate problem. We now solve this with our solution.
What did you do before? I ran a car park business (seriously!).
What’s been your absolute lowest point of running the company, so far? Being the target of jealousy. I’m not interested in competing with anyone else. I hope we all ‘make it’ and I don’t understand it when other people are unable to embrace that mentality too. What a horrible waste of energy.
What’s been the highlight of running the company, so far? There are so many milestones we have celebrated, but probably the highlight remains customer wins: validation from the market feels good!
Name someone who really inspires you. Vivienne Harr, the coolest 12-year-old on the planet. Her ambition is to be the first US Secretary of Peace. Awesome!
What app could you absolutely not live without? WhatsApp, with Spotify coming in a close second.
What’s your favourite drink? Water. I know. I’m so rock and roll 🙂
If you were a vegetable, what would you be? Unsurprisingly, I have no aspirations to be a vegetable.
Which three people, dead or alive, would you invite to a fantasy dinner? Oooh tough one. Right now I’d go for the former Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher, the founder of Quilliam and counter extremist Maajid Naawaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, who has just released the climate change documentary Before the Flood.
You can only hear one song for the rest of your life. What would be it? You ask the hardest questions! ‘You’re So Cool’ by Hans Zimmer.
What three things would you take with you to a desert island? A phone charger, sunscreen and salt and vinegar crisps.
Would you rather have an elephant’s trunk or a peacock’s tail? Not planning on either … but if you’re forcing my hand, the latter sounds a bit more ‘me’.
If you could have any superpower what would it be? The power to heal.