Biography
Emma has built four companies, exited two, and now sits on the board of Deployed, which she co-founded and where she raised $5M from global VCs including Mayfield Ventures and M12.
Today she leads AI transformation at Mindstone, working with teams across sales, ops, HR and leadership. Beyond helping people automate their workflows with the tools already available to them, the part she cares about most is the human piece: helping companies use culture, identity and purpose to guide people through the transition to a working life where half of what they used to do is no longer theirs to do.
Session
- AI For BuildersSpeaker
Debate 1 — Agents: The Real Platform Shift, or 2026's Most Overhyped Demo?
Tuesday 22 September, 12:00 – 12:55Auditorium StageEvery deck in 2026 says 'agentic.' Most agents still break the moment they touch a real workflow. Side A: agents are the genuine platform shift — the jump from copilots that suggest to systems that actually do the work, and the teams already shipping them in production are pulling ahead. Side B: 'agentic' is this cycle's most oversold demo — brittle, expensive, badly governed, a thin wrapper over the same models we already had. 55 minutes, two builders, one moderator who has actually run agents in prod, and an audience vote before and after.
With Damien Acheson, Maanas Mediratta, Dave Garcia, Simon Bosch, Barnaba Barcellona