Meet the Founders

Kelly Gordon and Emma Gardner met online during the pandemic through a shared desire to bring more Disabled people into creative spaces. Their respective backgrounds and expertise gave them the perfect grounding in starting WITH NOT FOR and joint values, ambition and drive has seen the company grow from strength to strength.

Only interested in creating ground breaking work, Kelly and Emma are dedicated to removing barriers and changing attitudes as they grow their client and talent base alike.

WNF Founders laughing in a studio on a white background. Em in a blue blazor over a jumpsuit and Kel in a tartan blazer over combats and a black top. Em is stood next to Kel who is sat in her wheelchair.
Kelly is sat in her wheelchair looking to the right wearing combats, a black vest & bright yellow & pink tartan blazer with long dark hair with blonde strands at the front she also had a black cowboy hat on,

Kelly Gordon
Co Founder & CEO

Kelly is an entrepreneur who has worked across multiple industries utilising her lived experience as a wheelchair user to inform her work, lead and ultimately make change. During her career Kelly has learnt a lot about herself as a Disabled professional in many male dominated industries, namely the Football industry, running a successful concierge business and managing Football players on a daily basis, and ultimately becoming CEO and co-owner of a professional Football Club in 2015.

Kelly has a Creative background, heading up the talent side of With Not For as co-founder and CEO using her lived experience of Disability as a catalyst for her work. Kelly is passionate about representation within the media and has been featured on many major channels and within numerous publications discussing anything ranging from entrepreneurship, disability and employment, all the way through to family, work life/balance, sexual wellness and sex education. Kelly’s and her content has been featured across;

BBC Victoria Derbyshire | BBC Woman’s Hour | Channel 5 | Virgin Media | BBC Three | The Sun - Career Women | METRO | USA TODAY | Cosmopolitan

Kelly’s work has been recognised through the following awards including:

• Disability Power100 Shortlisted 2024
• Women's Business Club Awards 2024 (nominated/shortlisted)
• Pour Moi - Innovator In Business finalist
• SCOPE 30 under 30

Follow Kelly on instagram and LinkedIn

Em is a white woman wearing a jumpsuit & light blue blazer with short pixie blonde hair. She is walking forward with both hands in her pockets.

Emma Gardner
Co Founder & COO

Emma is a parent carer with a background in advertising, creative production and business operations. Raising a Disabled child whilst living with Anxiety, Depression and less apparent conditions is what drove Emma to set up With Not For with Kelly as Co-Founder and COO. Having been on her own journey of acknowledging and reframing bias, she is incredibly invested in supporting other businesses to challenge perceptions and misreprensation of disability in the creative work they deliver.

Emma is also Co-Founder of Not Your Monolith (NYM) magazine, a pop culture mag created by Disabled people that acts as a real showcase of the talent available to the creative & media industries. NYM was designed to help set a new benchmark for disability culture within society, by portraying how diverse and intersectional the community and their experiences are. Emma’s work has been recognised through the following awards including:

• IPA iList 2024 - special mention
• Women's Business Club Awards 2024 (nominated/shortlisted)
• IPA iList shortlist 2020
• Pitch 100 SuperWoman, Pitchfanzine

Follow Emma on instagram and LinkedIn

Gradient Line Example