Emma Beckett
Founder & CEO: Fortitude 17 (UK) & One Seven Consultants (UAE). From Professional Football to Professional Testing - Driving Results in ERP.
London, United Kingdom
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Emma’s story is anchored in two worlds that rarely meet: elite sport and enterprise transformation. While building a professional football career, she developed deep, practical expertise in large-scale programmes for FTSE and global brands. Her grounding across AI, ERP, CRM and HCM ecosystems positions her as a trusted partner to Microsoft, Dayforce and organisations that want to navigate transformation with discipline, risk awareness and genuine quality control.
She is known for a direct, engaging style that cuts through jargon and gets to the truth of how programmes succeed or fail. Her talks blend sharp insight with authenticity, humour and sports logic, giving both technical and functional audiences something they can use the moment they leave the room.
Her sporting pedigree shapes her perspective. She sees transformation through the same lens as high-performance football: preparation, drills and strategy come first, and shortcuts simply cost you later.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Where Ops & Testing Collide: Building A Power Platform App That Could Survive A Global D365 Launch
Our session sits squarely where operational delivery, engineering decisions and assurance responsibilities intersect. It moves away from theory and focuses on how a Power Platform (PPM) solution was designed, governed and tested to establish reliable operational control ahead of a multi country Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O (incl. HR) & CE rollout for a market leader.
The session examines the shift from limitations and programme oversight to live, decision grade data, and why many specifically-designed solutions fail when visual appeal is prioritised over accuracy and trust. It explores the practical realities of modelling cost, revenue and margin in Dataverse, the compromises required between pace and control, and the less visible risks introduced by low code, including calculations, permissions, logic sprawl and environment drift.
Testing and assurance form a central theme. The session covers what failed late in delivery, why UAT alone was inadequate for a financially critical platform, and how calculations, historical data, role based views and edge cases were validated before the solution was relied upon by senior leadership.
The session closes with candid hindsight. What we would change if building again, where Power Platform exceeded expectations or fell short, and what must be in place from day one if a low code PPM solution is expected to survive enterprise scale, regulatory scrutiny and a global D365 programme.
ERP Isn’t Just Tech — It’s People, Process and Practice
Too many ERP projects in the region treat transformation as a purely technical upgrade. The reality? Technology alone doesn’t deliver value — people and process do. In the Middle East’s fast-moving business climate, adoption is the make-or-break factor that decides whether an investment in Business Central pays off or stalls.
In this session, Emma Beckett, Founder & CEO of Fortitude 17 and former international athlete, explores why ERP success requires the same ingredients as elite sport: discipline, standards, and practice. Drawing parallels between coaching a team and leading a transformation, Emma highlights how structured testing, user readiness, and continuous feedback loops turn complex implementations into long-term wins.
Attendees will leave with practical tools to strengthen user adoption, embed quality into processes, and lead ERP projects with the consistency and resilience of a high-performing team.
Cross-Border ERP Projects: Lessons From the UK, UAE and ANZ
Delivering Business Central across multiple regions isn’t just a technical challenge — it’s a balancing act of time zones, cultural nuances, and vendor overlap. What looks aligned in a project plan can quickly fall apart when testing and assurance don’t scale consistently across borders.
In this session, Emma Beckett, Founder & CEO of Fortitude 17, draws on experience with ERP and HCM transformations in the UK, UAE and ANZ to reveal where global programmes most often stumble: fragmented test cycles, inconsistent user adoption, and integration blind spots.
You’ll learn how independent QA frameworks smooth delivery, reduce rework, and bring a single source of truth across teams and geographies. Attendees will leave with practical takeaways on de-risking international rollouts, strengthening user readiness, and ensuring quality is never lost in translation.
AI in Business Central: The Untested Risks No One’s Talking About
At Directions Community Dubai BC Day 2025, Emma will explore how organisations can balance innovation with assurance. In a field where many speakers highlight shiny demos, Emma shines a light on the risks of untested AI and offers practical frameworks to test and validate Copilot-style features before putting them into production.
AI is transforming Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: automating tasks, surfacing insights, and promising faster decisions. But beneath the hype lies a critical question: how do you know you can trust what AI delivers?
In this session, Emma Beckett, CEO of Fortitude 17 and a former professional footballer turned ERP quality leader, uncovers the hidden risks of untested AI features in Business Central. From hallucinated data to biased outputs and broken integrations, she shows how overlooking quality assurance can turn “innovation” into costly mistakes.
Drawing on her experience leading QA in global ERP programmes, Emma introduces practical frameworks to validate AI before it reaches production. You’ll learn how to de-risk Copilot functionality, structure user testing to build confidence, and embed quality into AI-driven ERP projects.
Because in Business Central - just like on the pitch- you don’t play to win without preparation.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand the unseen risks of AI features in BC
- Practical testing strategies to validate Copilot & AI outputs
- How quality assurance transforms AI from hype into trust
Low Code, High Stakes: Making Power Platform Apps Safe For A Global D365 Programme
This session tells the story of what it actually takes to make a low code Power Platform solution safe enough to run alongside a global Dynamics 365 F&O and CE transformation inside a FTSE organisation.
Delivered jointly by a client-side hands-on Microsoft Test Manager and the client's Project Operations consultant (with focus on Dynamics 365 CE), the session sits at the point where delivery pressure, financial accountability and engineering reality collide. It moves beyond theory and showcases how a Power Platform (PPM) solution was designed, governed and tested to provide operational truth ahead of a multi country D365 rollout.
The session explores how spreadsheet-driven programme control was replaced with live, trusted data and why most PPM style apps fail when they prioritise visual polish over decision grade accuracy. It covers the practical challenges of modelling cost, revenue and margin, the trade offs made between speed and control, and the hidden risks low code introduces around calculations, permissions, logic sprawl and environment drift.
A strong focus is placed on testing and assurance. You will hear what actually broke late in the programme, why UAT alone was insufficient for a financial control app, and how calculations, historical data, role based views and edge cases were validated before the platform was trusted by leadership.
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