What We’re Actually Building Here
When people ask me what Emerald HQ is, I could give the surface-level answer: we help women in business with hiring, HR admin, and leadership. And technically, that’s true.
But that’s not the whole truth.
The real answer is bigger, deeper, and more personal. The real answer is this: we’re building a different way for women to lead their businesses.
Because here’s the reality. Most women don’t start a business to end up exhausted. You don’t quit a job or launch a vision so you can become the overworked, under-supported middle manager of your own life.
You start for freedom. You start to create impact. You start to do work that matters, on your own terms.
Somewhere along the way, that freedom gets buried. The admin piles up. The hiring is rushed. The HR folder gets shoved in a drawer and never used. The team that was meant to give you breathing room somehow needs you more than ever.
And suddenly, instead of running the business, you’re running yourself into the ground.
That cycle is what Emerald HQ exists to break.
You don’t build a business you enjoy by accident. You build it on purpose. You choose where you’re going, you choose what you’ll say yes to, and you choose what you’ll stop doing.
That’s the point of Emerald HQ.
Our vision
To transform how women lead their businesses - with trusted teams, unwavering values, and a life they genuinely enjoy.
Why this, and why now? Because too many brilliant women are stuck proving they can “do it all” instead of building companies that run without them doing it all. Trusted teams matter because trust is what frees you to stop micromanaging and start leading. Unwavering values matter because they’re the rails that keep decisions steady when the week gets loud. A life you genuinely enjoy matters because your business should fund your life, not swallow it.
Vision is the picture on the box. When you can see it, you stop assembling random pieces and start building something that makes sense. Our picture is simple. Women leading with confidence. Teams that own outcomes. Businesses that keep their promises without burning anyone out. A life outside work that isn’t an afterthought.
Our mission
We’re on a mission to help women lead their teams with clarity and confidence - through real-world hiring, HR admin, and leadership support that actually fits their business (and their life).
“Real-world” matters. You don’t need theory that collapses the second a client escalates or an employee resigns. You need hiring that sticks. HR admin people actually use. Leadership support that respects the size, season, and goals of your business. You need solutions that work when you’ve got three open roles, a launch next week, and a school assembly at 2pm.
“Fits your business and your life” matters too. We design for capacity, not fantasy. If a process needs a 60 minute meeting you’ll never keep, we’ll design a 15 minute version you will. If an idea looks impressive but adds friction, it’s out. Our mission is practical on purpose. Clarity you can act on. Confidence you can feel. Results you can measure.
Our values
Values aren’t a poster or a pep talk. Values are the rules of the game. These are ours, and how you’ll see them show up in the work.
What You See Is What You Get
We keep it real and show up exactly as we are.
Clear, honest, transparent communication. We’ll tell you what you need to hear to move forward, with just enough personality that you barely flinch.
You’ll see this when we kindly tell you “this won’t work in practice”, and when we hold the line on standards you said mattered.
Better Together
We back collaboration over competition.
Our team works with your team. No egos, no gatekeeping, no talking in circles.
You’ll see this when we co-create role outcomes with you and your leads, when we share our tools instead of hoarding them, and when we leave capability behind so you’re stronger after we step back.
Learn It Like You Mean It
We’re here to help you lead, not duct tape things and hope for the best.
We equip you with tools, not band-aids. We coach for purpose, not panic. We’re committed to our own development so our support stays sharp.
You’ll see this in the way we teach decision rights, in the way we build simple runbooks, and in the way we keep levelling up our practice.
Built for Life, Not Burnout
Work should be flexible, sustainable, and human.
We don’t worship hustle. We say yes to boundaries, school pick ups, espresso martinis, and in-person connection. We’re a work in progress, and we own our mistakes.
You’ll see this in how we design rhythms you can keep, not perform, and in how we protect thinking time like any other critical asset.
Clarity. Growth. Leadership.
That’s our tagline because it’s the sequence that makes this work.
Clarity is first.
When direction is fuzzy, everything’s heavy. Clarity looks like a one-sentence quarter focus everyone can repeat. It looks like three outcomes per role that prove the seat matters. It looks like decision rights that stop work bouncing back uphill. Clarity removes guesswork, which removes drama.
Growth is second.
Not just revenue. Maturity. Capability. Alignment. Growth looks like better hires who stay. It looks like managers who can coach, not just escalate. It looks like processes that speed things up without grinding people down. Real growth is repeatable. It survives a sick day and a public holiday.
Leadership is the point.
Leadership isn’t availability, it’s making it possible for other people to win. Leadership looks like standards that hold, priorities that stick, and a team that moves without waiting for you to bless every step. Leadership is how you get your life back without lowering the bar.
Put together, Clarity, Growth, Leadership is the engine under Emerald HQ. It’s how vision turns into weeks you can live with.
What we’re actually building here
We’re building companies where women stop proving they’re capable and start proving their system is. We’re building teams that carry their share because expectations are clear and ownership is real. We’re building cultures that you can hear in a meeting and feel in a handover. We’re building a working week that does not require you to be on call to qualify as a good leader.
Here’s how that shows up in the work.
Hiring that lasts
We start with a kick off call to dig deep into the role, your business, what your dream person looks like, what your challenges are, what your goals are, what your culture and values are, and more. It’s intense. I love the looks I see on clients’ faces when we go through this, and the comments we get.
“I’ve never thought about that before.”
“Jeez you’re making me work here.”
It’s all about getting everything that is unwritten out of your head and into mine, so I can turn it into a position description that actually means something, and an advert that is a real sales pitch to potential candidates, and weave your culture through your process and elevate your candidate and employee experience to maximise your attraction and retention strategies. Stripping the corporate language back - it’s about getting the role out there in a way that makes people want to leave their current job to work with you, and want to stay with you.
HR admin people actually use
A confession? HR is not our main focus. We don’t offer contract writing, we don’t do performance management or employee relations.
We’re there to cut the noise. A lot of outsourced HR support you get is still built for big businesses. We’re implementing HR admin processes and systems that meet the needs of small businesses. Policies are written in plain language and kept where people can find them. We train managers to use them. We support you to implement what you need for right now, and take steps to help you push it further for your future. Success looks like faster decisions, fewer dramas, and leaders who don’t have to babysit the basics.
Culture you can feel on Monday
You know the Sunday dread? You start to feel it on the Sunday morning when you think about the weekend nearly being over, and that work is coming, and you’re just filled with dread and defeat.
We support you to create a work environment and culture that mean your team don’t feel that dread.
Where values turn into habits. Meetings start and end on time (if they’re even necessary). Decisions end with one owner and a date. Feedback is normal and specific. Communication is open and kind. You don’t need a poster to remember how to behave because the standard is obvious.
Culture work is so broad. We can support you to define your vision and values, and embed them. We can support you to map your employee journey and touch points and how you can improve their experience. We can support you to implement your employee value proposition, and benefits that actually add value and make people want to stay.
Just recently, we’ve worked with a client over several months to build their Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Not just an EVP statement, but an entire document that outlines all the ways in which they value their employees.
Leadership support that fits your stage
You move from doing to leading. You protect deep work. You stop rescuing and start coaching. You hand over decisions that don’t belong with you and keep the ones only you can make. The team grows up because you let them.
We’ve recently launched a leadership community for women in business. Many in this space have never had a formal team before, or had a team, but in an employment role, where they were supported by policies, processes and a supervisor above them still. Many women in business started a business for freedom and balance, and they don’t expect they’ll be leading a team. They often don’t have the knowledge or confidence, but they know they want to get it right. That’s what the leadership community is all about - guidance to support you in your journey as a leader.
Why this matters
Busy isn’t proof of impact. It’s often proof of unclear priorities and invisible systems.
We don’t clap for heroic weeks that break people. We’ve been through it ourselves when we’ve let our own boundaries blur, and we push our clients to learn from our mistakes. We build predictable weeks that build companies. Predictable isn’t boring. Predictable is how you scale standards without scaling stress.
This matters because women deserve to build wealth and freedom without paying for it with their health, their families, or their sense of self. It matters because teams deserve leaders who are present and clear, not stretched and resentful. It matters because clients deserve consistency, not chaos disguised as “moving fast”.
What changes when this lands
For you
You get time back for the work only you can do.
Your calendar stops punishing you for being good at your job.
Your standards hold without you holding everything.
You can log off without bracing for impact.
You have space to actually grow your business.
For your team
People know what they own and how to win.
They don’t need to chase approvals to make progress.
The smartest people stay because the system lets them do great work.
For the business
Turnover drops.
Hiring sticks.
Quality goes up.
Speed goes up.
You stop paying the tax of rework and start compounding the gains of clarity.
Your bottom line looks healthier.
A simple start that respects your week
You don’t need a reorg. You need a few moves you keep.
Clarity
Write your quarter focus in one sentence and put it where everyone can see it. For real, what are you REALLY focusing on this quarter to move your business towards your overarching vision and mission?
List three outcomes under that, that will show you’re making progress in that focus.
Throughout the quarter, if an activity doesn’t serve one of those outcomes, question it.
Growth
Pick one part of the employee journey (such as hiring, onboarding, etc.), and raise the standard so it works better every time, not just this time.
If it’s hiring, start by defining success for the role in plain language before you write the ad. Stop guessing and start filtering for alignment.
If it’s onboarding, build a simple pathway that gets new hires confident faster. Day one should show them what success looks like, not just where the bathrooms are.
Growth is about scaling consistency. When you raise the standard once and lock it in, you make every future hire, every new starter, and every performance conversation stronger. That’s how your business matures without you having to personally hold the bar every time.
Leadership
Hand one process where you’re the bottleneck to the person who should actually own it. Or if you are the person who still owns that process, how can you smooth out the process, so it doesn’t stop with you?
Give context, guardrails, and a review point. Don’t take it back when you feel itchy.
Let capability grow.
Small, visible, kept. That’s the game.
Where this came from
We didn’t land here in one jump. We started as a resume writer, a side gig that cared about people getting good work. Six months later, we shifted into VA support so we could help business owners directly, still writing resumes on the side, leaning into hiring and HR admin wherever we could. Every step showed us the same pattern. The leaders who thrived had clarity, structure, and culture they could live with. The ones who struggled tried to carry it all.
We outgrew Career Pursuit because we weren’t about chasing jobs anymore. We were about building leadership and teams.
Emerald HQ is the name that matches the work.
The line we’re drawing
We won’t sell you binders no one reads.
We won’t bury you in complicated frameworks that don’t stick.
We won’t pretend “hustle” is a strategy.
We won’t pretend that burnout is the price of success.
We won’t lower standards to keep the peace.
We’ll tell you the truth, back you while you change the system, and leave you stronger than we found you.
That’s what we’re actually building here.
Trusted teams.
Unwavering values.
A life you genuinely enjoy.
Clarity. Growth. Leadership.
If you want a place to start this week, pick one of those three words and make a move you can keep for four weeks. Then watch what shifts.
Ash + Emerald HQ 💎
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