Emma Farrell
I'm Irish, based in Zürich. I spent over a decade in asset management, including four years as an ESG and Active Ownership Specialist at Credit Suisse Asset Management. I left that role in 2023, drove 30,000km through East and Southern Africa, and came back with different questions.
On returning, I built a charity from scratch, worked for a stint at an NGO, and had my first experience in a consulting role. I believe that moving across different contexts - the corporate, the civic, the unfamiliar - doesn't just broaden perspective, it rewires how you think, what you notice, and what you refuse to accept as fixed.
I am curious by nature, spend a lot of time in my head, and could fairly be called a serial idea generator. I designed The Adjacent after attending a design fiction workshop in early 2026 that introduced me to the practice of writing from the future as a tool for imagining differently. I tend to see systems before I see surfaces, and gaps before I see what fills them. The Adjacent came from that - and from the conviction that naming what is missing is the first step toward building it.
I also think seriously about chocolate - this is both a professional interest and a personal one.
Emilie Wapnick has a word for people like me: multipotentialite - someone with many interests and no single calling, someone who is curious about a lot of different subjects and wants to do a lot of different things, and who is simply not wired for the romanticised notion of one destiny, one great purpose, one lane. I have always been drawn across domains rather than down into one, interested in the connections between things as much as the things themselves, and energised by the kind of work that requires you to move, translate, and synthesise rather than specialise.
It turns out this comes with something specific to offer: the ability to move across contexts without losing coherence, to connect things that don't usually meet, to learn fast enough to be genuinely useful in unfamiliar territory, and to see patterns that people working inside a single domain often can't.
Founder of The Adjacent. Developing a strategic imagination methodology for organisations navigating genuine transition.
BackgroundESG and Active Ownership Specialist, Credit Suisse Asset Management (four years). Over a decade in asset management. Advisory work through Adowa GmbH, Zürich.
AlsoTrustee and CFO, Ngaara School Meals. Springer author. Improv and storytelling practice at Storylabor Zürich. Manuscript in progress.
BasedZürich, Switzerland.
ContactCoffee, Lunch or a Call
I have a lot of conversations - about strategy, imagination, chocolate governance, workshop facilitation, panel moderation, and whatever else comes up. If you would like to meet for coffee, lunch, or a call, pick a slot directly.
Coffee, lunch or a call ->