Entrepreneur of the Year 2026
Category criteria
- This award will recognise someone who has had a big impact with their own business or innovation and is open to people at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey.
- The judges will reward enterprising behaviour such as innovation, calculated risk-taking, management, leadership, vision and originality.
- The judges will also look for a positive impact on the wider economy and community.
Emma Cartlich
Entrepreneur of the Year entrant
Former NHS Educator of the Year winner Emma Cartlich now uses her teaching skills to run two pet businesses including founding and scaling a training academy.
Emma, from Weston Coyney, runs wedding dog chaperone service Precious Pets Weddings with her husband Adrian alongside Ultra Clean Canines, where she has created a one-of-a-kind training platform and works with colleges around the UK.
She is constantly innovating within both businesses including creating a training arm to Precious Pets Weddings to upskill other people looking to enter the profession rather than seeing them as a threat to her business.
She said: “Everything we do with both businesses is about being professional and ethical.
“I was a teacher and a trainer in colleges and in the NHS where I used to teach doctors and nurses how to use clinical hospital systems and would help GP surgeries to use new clinical IT systems. I spent 14 years in the NHS and before that I worked in colleges and prisons.”
She says it was a natural progression to launch the businesses after her husband trained as a dog groomer.
She was initially still working full-time as Research and Development Training Lead at University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, leaving her job in 2018 to work full-time on the businesses.
“We never anticipated Ultra Clean Canines becoming such a successful training academy and when we took Precious Pets Weddings to wedding shows we had people queueing around the corner to speak to us.
“I took a risk and left my job with the NHS to get our businesses off the ground. Then the pandemic hit and dog grooming businesses were shutting down, so I had the idea of running emmi®-pet seminars on Zoom and the rest is history.
“Adrian is like the dog whisperer and doesn’t even go on a laptop whereas I’m the entrepreneurial one with a background in IT.”
Emma added: “I get real job satisfaction from what I do. It really can feel like I’m making people’s dreams come true. We do our job because we have a genuine passion for what we do.”
Emma Cartlich has entered the Entrepreneur of the Year category of University of Staffordshire Business Awards.