About
Émergente
Émergente is a French word meaning to emerge or develop. The use of the feminine form is a subtle nod to the communities we serve and the ideological landscape we work within.
It speaks to emergence as both a practice and a philosophy, the act of bringing emerging ideas, systems, and creative visions into form. At its heart, Émergente embodies the continual evolution of how we live and work, in alignment with our values, our planet, and the collective.
Émergente was founded from a belief that business can be a force for cultural change, not just through what we create but through how we create it. The work we do is not confined to big brands or large-scale change initiatives; it begins in the everyday choices that shape our businesses, including how we hire, train, and pay staff, how we structure time for rest and creativity, and how we redistribute wealth and opportunity.
Studies show that women are statistically more likely to donate, invest, and allocate resources toward causes that advance collective and planetary wellbeing. They give more generously, more consistently, and are motivated by empathy and social connection rather than self-interest. When women lead, their decisions tend to prioritise collaboration, social responsibility, and long-term community outcomes over short-term gain.
Traditionally, women’s bodies, labour, and ways of knowing have been undervalued or excluded from leadership models and productivity systems that were primarily built through a masculine, linear lens. Our work reclaims the right to lead differently. We design systems that honour cyclical rhythms, rest, and embodied intelligence.
At its core, Émergente is a reimagining of what effective leadership looks like and exists to amplify this new way of working.
Émergente was founded to meet a growing gap in the impact and sustainability sectors: a need for business support that merges excellence with embodiment. Our market is defined by ethos, not industry, serving leaders who value purposeful design, impact-led models, and the necessity of creativity,
Research consistently shows that purpose-driven and human-centred businesses outperform traditional models across key value metrics such as employee retention, innovation, customer loyalty, and long-term financial stability. By fostering environments rooted in equity, wellbeing, and sustainability, these organisations create the conditions for creativity and productivity to coexist, demonstrating that care is a competitive advantage.
Émergente positions itself within this expanding ecosystem of leaders reimagining how work, wellbeing and impact coexist.
Work
The
Way
We
Our clients are often:
Too grounded and driven for purely spiritual communities
Too intuitive and creative for corporate spaces
Too justice-oriented for conventional entrepreneurship advice
They want to:
Lead in a more feminine way that honors their somatic and intuitive intelligence
Create businesses that can nest into their lives, and are both operationally sound and socially informed
Structure their company and work week in a way that honours their unique neurotype, energy system, and lifestyle needs
Contribute to the emergence of more just, sustainable, and creative economies and ideas
About the Founder
That’s Me
Ella Cotterell is the founder of Émergente, a business and creative studio working with women-led founders, teams, and organisations who view business as a site for cultural and spiritual evolution.
With a first-class honours degree in Psychology and extensive experience across startups and government programmes, Ella bridges behavioural science with strategic operations. Her background in rehabilitation, embodiment coaching, and trauma-informed practice shapes her approach to leadership, grounded in both evidence-based approaches and somatic intelligence.
Her work integrates ecological, feminist, and psychological frameworks to help mission-driven organisations design structures that are as effective as they are human.
Ella is also a writer and facilitator whose practice explores identity, social politics, and systems change. Awarded the Peace Psychology Prize for her thesis in 2018, she continues to explore how empathy, activism, and sytems can coexist in building sustainable futures for women and their communities.