Emily Yates

Emily is a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy. She is Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design for human-centred design agency, Mima, and leads their project work in physical, social and digital accessibility interventions and solutions. In the past year alone, Emily has authored VisitEngland’s Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses, which provides technical guidance and holistic hints and tips to tourism SMEs who are low on time, budget and resource but have aspirations to make inclusive improvements. Emily was also the accessibility lead for the recent COP28 in Dubai, undertaking and quality assessing built environment access audits and designing an inclusive guidance framework for all teams, from catering to accommodation. Emily continues to work with the National Railway Museum in York on their inclusive Vision2025 strategy. The museum’s first new gallery, Wonderlab, an engineering playground for 7 to 14 year olds, opened in autumn 2023 with Emily having advised on the accessibility of all 20+ interactive exhibits for those with physical, sensory and cognitive accessibility requirements – whether visible or non-visible. Emily is also working globally, with current clients including Bahrain Airport, BBC’s ‘MasterChef’ and SeriousFun Children’s Network – a global organisation that provides life-changing camp opportunities to children with accessibility requirements. Emily sits on the Motability-funded ncat board, and advises easyJet on their accessibility strategy. She regularly speaks at global events and conferences, and co-chaired the accessibility track at Passenger Terminal Expo in Frankfurt this April.

Managing and mentoring a team of accessibility consultants, all with lived experience of disability and other protected characteristics, is also testament to Emily’s commitment to ensure a legacy of impact is created within the inclusive design space; she believes that true change will only happen when more diverse representation is present within positions of leadership.

Emily consults and leads with aspiration, pragmatism and kindness in all she does, co-creating with and learning from those with other experiences and expertise wherever possible. She has a solid reputation in the accessibility arena following her work with Lonely Planet and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.