Before Tortoise, Emily was Chief of Staff to Jonathan Powell, working on all things UK politics. She had been in the States for a few years before that, spending two years at Harvard as a graduate student then researcher at the Kennedy School of Government, helping write a book on ageing demographics with Camilla Cavendish.
Emily had jumped into Academia from banking, having worked as an Investment Banker on the trading floor of UBS in London and New York for just over 6 years, on the macro sales team, covering big institutional and hedge funds. She was a Parliamentary candidate in both the 2010 and 2015 General Elections (her top tip: wear comfortable trainers when spending hours delivering leaflets) – and was previously an elected Local Councillor for the ward she was born in in South London.