Emma Jones CBE
The Convener
The room, the network and the deal, brings the right people together.
Emma Jones CBE is a British entrepreneur, government-appointed commissioner and small-business advocate. She is the UK's Small Business Commissioner (appointed 2024, two-year term), an arm's-length government role focused on reducing late-payment friction in the economy. She is the founder of Enterprise Nation, one of the UK's largest small-business networks, which she built from 2005 and sold in 2023, stepping away as CEO in May 2025. Her first company, Techlocate.com, was founded in 2000 after five years at Arthur Andersen and sold to Tennent in 2001 when she was 27. She was awarded the CBE for services to small business. Her current community work includes Ramsgate Space, a Kent-based community-interest company she set up in 2024 to fill empty shops with enterprising projects, and the forthcoming Seaside CEO publication profiling coastal-town entrepreneurs.
“if small businesses do well, we do well. And so of course it comes from a place of philanthropy, but it also comes from a place of: it's good business.”
“you want big corporates contributing, you want government to play its role, and then of course you want small businesses who are actively embracing this. If you get that right, then that's how you get the flywheel working.”
“we went to meet four individual entrepreneurs so policy holders can meet people at the front line of running businesses.”
Late payment, SME growth and The Next Agenda
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