Emma-Sue Prince is the Founder and Director of Unimenta and is a published author, trainer, materials designer and consultant. Emma-Sue strongly believes in experiential learning and through this building self-awareness. She has been involved with consultancy projects to build employability and soft skills across the world, including India, Nepal, Tunisia, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
To find out more about Emma-Sue and her business journey, read on!
Tell us five fun facts about you...
- I am a singer – I sing jazz and gospel in choirs, but also solo.
- I used to be a Trustee for a charity that advocated for those facing the death sentence in the USA.
- I am bilingual. I speak German and English equally.
- I’m training to be a Magistrate
- I practise Yoga and run weekly Mindfulness sessions.
What inspired you to set up Unimenta 7 Skills for the Future?
Lots of things came together unexpectedly. At the time I had been working on designing new qualifications for Pearson/Edexcel – Effective Behaviours for Work – and when we piloted these in different countries, realised that teachers and trainers did not necessarily know how to deliver sessions for these kinds of soft skills. I wanted a hub of resources that would support that.
At the same time, the opportunity arose to write a book for Pearson that would redefine soft skills and 7 Skills for the Future was born. Once the book was written, I was fired up to design sessions that would lead to stronger self-awareness and behavioural change and the workshops were born. Unimenta then evolved into a platform for anyone wanting to develop the 7 skills.
‘I love working with people from all backgrounds and seeing that these skills matter no matter your age, where you work, what sector you work in or where in the world you are.’
– Emma-Sue Prince
What are some of the most enjoyable aspects of your work?
I think seeing the transformation in people when they attend one of our workshops. Knowing with absolute 100% conviction that it is these 7 Skills of being adaptable, thinking critically, becoming more empathetic, living life with integrity, being optimistic, proactive and resilient that make us happier, feel more in control and reach our full potential.
I love working with people from all backgrounds and seeing that these skills matter no matter your age, where you work, what sector you work in or where in the world you are. I love working with lawyers and doctors and I love learning something new every time I run any kind of training session, whether face-to-face or, increasingly, online.
What are some of your highlights from the past year?
This past year has brought huge changes but also huge growth. I’ve often felt that what I do is slightly ahead of the curve but with these 7 Skills there has been much stronger recognition that these really are the skills we need now more than ever before. It was a challenging time and I ended up working alone for most of it and we became busier than ever. In addition to running many many online sessions, I poured energy into two new products – self-access modules for each of the 7 skills and publishing a guided journal:
I knew pretty early on in the pandemic that training face-to-face was going to pivot and change. We will still have it and are very slowly returning to it but we have been and are embracing online learning so much more now. So I wanted to replicate our face-to-face workshops in an online setting. I’ve always wanted to make these sessions accessible and affordable and now they are available for a world-wide audience. The 7 Skills Courses are completely self-access AND a rich learning experience.
The second product is the 7 Skills Journal – I’ve always advocated that workshop participants keep a journal to help nurture the 7 skills and again, creating and publishing this was a natural next step and means that more people can access the skills. I’m tremendously excited about both of these new initiatives and proud that both of these were developed in 2020, which has been such a landmark year.
What have you learnt this year?
Personally, through this year I have learned just how strong and resilient I am! Everything got stripped away – we lost all our clients within one week apart from ONE law firm who asked if I would honour the face-to-face sessions they had booked and recreate them online into 90-minute Masterclasses. I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do that – but I did – and they have been enormously successful. I’ve learned that you don’t have to substitute face-to-face for online or vice versa. They are all just different learning experiences and each one can be rich, transformative and meaningful.
