Emma Sheldon has had roles including non-executive director, trade ambassador, and healthcare pioneer. In 2016, she was named the Institute of Directors’ North West International Director of the Year.
Sheldon is a graduate from Manchester University’s MBA programme and is the Group Marketing Director at Vernacare. She has been deeply involved in the company’s market entry into the Middle East and Asia. In 2015, she helped secure Vernacare’s biggest ever contract in Asia. In 2016, she was part of a high profile visit to South East Asia, led by the then Prime Minister David Cameron. She then took part in a further regional trade mission to China, led by George Osborne, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. In China, she signed a memorandum of understanding with a leading Chinese healthcare provider.
She has also travelled to India with the UK Prime Minister Theresa May, and secured a landmark contract with Manipal, one of Asia’s largest healthcare and hospital management companies.
Sheldon is also a Department of International Trade export ambassador, a group board member of the UK India Business Council (UKIBC), and a board member of Greater Manchester Regional Growth Fund. Through these roles, she hopes to encourage other innovative businesses to achieve their exporting ambitions overseas.
Tell us a little bit about your career journey
I took a global executive MBA at Manchester Business School. It had a great programme of executive support and this is what attracted me. It was a huge decision for me to take the MBA, because I thought I’d passed that moment. But it was a great decision. I was able to use the knowledge and experience I had, network with some wonderful people, and have the executive support the School had identified would be useful. My executive coach was wonderful in peeling back any hesitance on my part and encouraging me to see that I should go for things.
An example is the UK India Business Council, which was looking for board members. I might previously have held back from applying – but Vernacare was investigating India as a market. I put myself forward as my MBA helped me feel much more qualified. I’m contributing and thinking really positively on the board. This has led to many other opportunities, such as allowing me to support other business on issues such as structure and export.
How does this work in practice as a marketing director in a global business, with positions on other boards?
Three months after starting the MBA, Vernacare decided to undertake a management buyout and I could apply my learning to that process. There’s a lot of synergy in the projects I’m involved in. Board meetings at the UK India Business Council are quarterly but we discuss things that have great relevance to my own business. These things cannot be underestimated. As we’ve gone on our export journey, I’ve been able to show that we, as an SME, can tackle a market as complex as India. It is a market we can successfully do business with.
What does a typical day look like for you?
We have a team of eight in marketing. We talk about how we can deploy our brand and make it relevant across the healthcare market and, also operationally, how we support sales in different markets. Part of my role was running Vernacare’s innovation department in developing next generation infection prevention products, but this has now morphed into a business development role. We have a 96% market share in the UK, so export is our next logical step. It’s been a privilege to review the strategy internationally and see it in action.
A big part of your business is working with the public sector. How does the dichotomy work with you as a growing private sector business liaising with the NHS, regulators in other countries, and their healthcare practices?
It’s a really interesting challenge. I am a great believer in collaboration, so the aim is to work in partnership with customers, partners, and regulators to ensure the patients we serve can access the benefits we provide when hospitals adopt our system. We work closely with the Department of International Trade and Healthcare UK in other markets. You can’t replace the level of expertise they bring in terms of regulatory issues. Calling upon them is important. There are amazing skill sets out there. For market research, we called on the Department of International Trade to support and help us find distributors who will fit with us, and with whom we can create successful business.
The MBA is a pathway to global leadership – how do you address the cultural challenges?
It depends on the market. Certain markets are addressed directly, but we always leave room for a partner to come in locally and support us. The trade-off is not understanding the market robustly. You need to go in shoulder-to-shoulder. We’ve done a lot of work to decide what we need for particular markets. We want to be more thoughtful and aware to ensure our business is sustainable.
In a fast-moving world, it can be competitive. How do ensure your messages get to the right people in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment?
We’re operating in turbulent times. I think it’s about a back to basics approach. Are we in the right place? We want to create something meaningful that resonates with our audience. We have to enter markets in an informed way, so we know the market and can talk in a clear and direct way about what matters.
As people communicate more, marketplaces are becoming busier and silos develop. How would you address this?
We’re lucky because we’re an SME, and I generally know the whole business and what other departments are doing. There’s a risk of being so busy that you can’t lift your head though.
When we launched a previous global strategy, communication was important because we’d been so UK-focused. We needed to feel international in all our markets. Some markets want ‘best of British’ healthcare and that’s what we stand for. But how can we make this localised in a more meaningful way for that market?
In India we have a particular product innovation especially for that market. We can now take this and adapt it for other international marketplaces. For me, international trade is a real passion. In the UK, one in five SMEs export; in Europe one in four export. In the UK, 99% of businesses are SMEs and the growth potential from international trade is exciting. It’s a really important strategic imperative that could make such a difference. What’s stopping people from doing it? I want to help to tear down the barriers and get more companies exporting more products and services to more places.
What support can SMEs access?
The UK India Business Council can share readiness reports to show business leaders if they’re ready to address India . If they are not ready, they can offer consultancy and resources to help them.
The Department of International Trade will give you a trade advisor who can offer access into the markets that will be more appropriate. It can be as simple as using the Global Competitiveness Index. At Vernacare, we narrowed it down to ten countries and then the Department helped us with detailed market research. I would much rather fail fast and have all the information I need. It’s also about talking to other businesses that have addressed these challenges in the past.
I also sit on the board of the Greater Manchester Growth Fund, which does due diligence on companies wanting to export, and approves grants to support them in their export journeys. This is available across the country in various guises. This allows me to actually see prospects for growth in the region.
Entering new markets can be scary, but just take it step-by-step, anticipate problems, make sure you’ve resourced appropriately and give it a go.
Tell us a bit about the work you do in India
Vernacare has just sold its infection prevention products to one of Asia’s largest private hospital groups in India. We focus on infection prevention and our innovation has been really well accepted after a number of trials. India has been eye-opening in terms of scale and volume of hospital admissions, so we had to be more innovative and change our business model. If you have an open mind, you can find a niche, which will be profitable and important. For smaller businesses, it’s about finding a nugget of information that can make all the difference.
What should responsible leadership look like?
Part of the Manchester Business School MBA course was about ethical capitalism. Times are changing and so are values. Millennials, in particular, are asking about CSR and how businesses can engage ethically and build sustainable jobs. It’s our responsibility as leaders to have answers to these questions and also be thinking about what challenges we’re going to come across to keep these promises. The business landscape is very turbulent and we have broad, high-level challenges – Brexit for example. As we develop technologically, we can come up with more ways of doing things and job profiles will change. It’s claimed that four out of five children starting school now will be doing jobs that don’t currently exist.
How does a leader keep abreast of the pace of change? The answers are not simple but we have to keep responsibility and ethics as our pillar. How are we collaborating to consider these problems? We need to bring in the right people to cover all the right bases.
Artificial intelligence could lead to greater profits, but the social implications could be huge and ethics comes into play here.
Until recently, sustainability was PR rhetoric and now it’s moved to the core of business strategy. With this in mind, what are the skills you’d look for in your team of the future?
I’m looking for people who are curious about how we solve problems. In our business, we need people with market insight who will come up with ways of generating data for us and adapt our business models. We’re open to change and that’s how we believe we’ll grow. I would like curious people with a strategic framework to deliver that curiosity and have the flexibility to work across fast-changing demographics.
What would your advice be to MBA students and graduates?
Go for it. At any stage of your career, being able to think and apply your time to considering other people’s ideas and structures will benefit you.
The cohort in my MBA programme was international, so it was a brilliant experience. In my mind, going along to lectures isn’t good enough, you need to bring your business brain to the exercise. The things that I didn’t think would be valuable, really were – like revisiting marketing strategy. The networking was amazing and these connections will be friends forever. You’ll only get out what you put in.
Do you think Business Schools and employers have strong enough links?
I think it could be better, given the rate of change. There are a lot of strategic models and disruption and it’s important to always try to remain current. Bringing more business leaders in, as in my MBA, for supplementary talks, site visits or just networking, then linking this back to theory, is vital and plays out nicely.
As a successful female leader, what would your advice be to other aspiring women?
Just talk. There are so many networking events for women, but talk to men who are passionate about inspiring diversity. It’s disappointing to hear women have had a challenging time, but it’s inspiring to know how they’ve worked through this and moved forward. I’m a role ambassador for women in business and I’m passionate about lifting other people as I rise. I want to give women the same opportunities as men, and give them more opportunities in their businesses and societies, because as people learn more about themselves, they’ll be more skilled and able to contribute.
Do you feel optimistic about the future?
I’m an eternal optimist, but you’ve got to be pragmatic. In my view, we’re leaders and our responsibility is to have a vision, and to inspire others during turbulent times, because we can’t all naval gaze can we? The reality is ‘life goes on’ and day-to-day problems can always be turned into opportunities if you have the right mindset. The key is to have the skills and the people to do this; you need to be a forward thinking business with a great vision that helps people to collaborate.
That’s the effort you need to put in to get your people to come with you on the journey.
