Few entrepreneurs in the UK have been as successful as Emma Harrison at combining the goal of making a difference to people’s lives with achieving financial success.

 As the Founder of A4E, a company that runs training and skills services on behalf of the government to help unemployed people back to work and advise small businesses, Ms Harrison oversees a company with around 2,500 employees and revenues of more than £100m. Her personal fortune is estimated at more than £55m – enough to earn her a place on the 2005 Sunday Times Rich List, a roll call of the UK’s wealthiest individuals.

Ms Harrison developed her entrepreneurial skills at an early age, running an illegal tuck shop at her local comprehensive school in Sheffield. After graduating from Bradford University with an engineering degree, she went to work with her father, who had set up a training agency to provide support for those made unemployed by the closure of the local steel works. Weeks later, Ms Harrison’s father left for Germany, leaving her in charge of the company. Within a year, the business was turning over £1m (US$2m). When Ms Harrison’s father returned, they disagreed over the future direction of the business, and Ms Harrison left to found A4E.

In the 20 years that she has been in business, Ms Harrison has detected a gradual improvement in the way in which female entrepreneurs are perceived by the finance community and other professions, such as law and accountancy. “Things are moving in the right direction,” she says. “The banks have woken up to the fact that there’s some good business to be had by working with women. I think it’s just a commercial thing – the banks, lawyers and accountants are all making money off businesses that are run by women.”

With the groundwork being laid in terms of perceptions of female entrepreneurs, an important question for many researchers is how women’s aptitude for entrepreneurship compares with that of men. Here, Ms Harrison feels that women may have a genuine edge in that they tend to possess some of the same personality traits that characterise successful entrepreneurs. “The good entrepreneurs that you meet are very creative, and they’re genuinely very empathic and honest. They’ve also learned how to get on with others and make genuine friendships, which I would say are more feminine characteristics.”

Although the businesses being set up by women naturally span the full commercial spectrum, academics and commentators have noted that, in common with Ms Harrison’s A4E, female entrepreneurship tends to gravitate towards enterprises that have a social aspect. Research by the London Business School’s Social Entrepreneurship Monitor has found that women are more likely to start social enterprises – businesses that trade for a social purpose – than traditional, purely commercial ones.

This finding corresponds with Ms Harrison’s own experience of the female entrepreneurship community. “If you talk to women entrepreneurs, they’ve all got a reason for doing their business,” she says. “There’s something they want to change. It’s never as simple as ‘I just wanted to make myself some money’, whereas you do get that from men.”

For many women, especially mothers who may feel that they do not receive enough support or understanding in a corporate environment, the entrepreneurial route can appear very attractive. As the mother of four young children, Ms Harrison says that she has benefited from a career that gives her control over her life, but warns against any would-be entrepreneur thinking they will necessarily have any more free time. “Being an entrepreneur means that you’re in charge of your own destiny,” she says. “Whether it gives you any more time than working for a company, I don’t think it does. But it does give you the control over how you use your time. If you’re working for a big city firm, you don’t necessarily get that.”

Despite the advances that have been made in the recognition of female entrepreneurs, Ms Harrison feels that there is still a place for women-only networks, at which female innovators can share experiences, tips and contacts. “I speak at a lot of these events and, for women who are just beginning, their biggest problem is confidence,” she says. “You can see that women get a lot of support from meeting other women and it not being a male-dominated event.”

Although she has achieved outstanding success with A4E, Ms Harrison sees no reason to rest on her laurels, and says that she is pursuing ambitious market and geographical expansion plans.

By 2014, she expects annual revenues from A4E to reach £500m (US$1bn), and for half of these to come from overseas projects, which include centres in France, Germany, Israel, Poland and South Africa. She is also in the throes of setting up a bank in a joint venture that will provide services for the same demographic that uses A4E’s training and skills offering. Her motivation remains, as it always has been, to make a difference to individuals’ lives. “Business is a lovely thing to be involved with because it’s about people,” she says. “I love working with the people I work with and I love seeing them become successful.”