When Emma Dickison entered the franchising world, she wasn’t chasing a company title; she was merely making an attempt to assist her household. A single mother with a background in historical past and training, Dickison took a job with a little-known franchise model referred to as Blockbuster in 1990, then simply 150 areas sturdy. Fourteen years later, she’d helped develop it into a world juggernaut with over 8,800 areas and greater than $1 billion in annual gross sales.
“I fell in love with franchising,” she says. “If my mother and father had entry to this mannequin once they ran their small enterprise, it might’ve been a present. Franchising supplies the community and assist unbiased enterprise house owners usually lack.”
In the present day, Dickison is CEO and president of Residence Helpers Residence Care, a model ranked #489 on Entrepreneur‘s 2025 Franchise 500. She joined Residence Helpers greater than a decade in the past, and her private mission {and professional} expertise seamlessly align. She was just lately appointed to the Worldwide Franchise Affiliation’s board of administrators — one among 16 new members elected in 2025 — capping off a profession constructed on innovation, empathy and impression.
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“Our job is to allow them to inform their story — after which present the assist they want.”
Dickison’s connection to caregiving has been lifelong. At the same time as a younger woman, she helped her household assist family members by means of critical well being challenges, together with strokes, most cancers and the results of growing older. Her grandmother lived at dwelling for 18 years following a collection of strokes, cared for by the household. In the present day, Dickison is as soon as once more navigating caregiving firsthand, serving to handle in-home hospice look after her mother-in-law.
“Although I do that for a residing, it is nonetheless arduous when it is your personal household,” she says. “However it jogs my memory that, for most individuals, that is their first expertise with caregiving. They’re emotional, overwhelmed. Our job is to allow them to inform their story — after which present the assist they want.”
That blend of empathy and entrepreneurial drive is a part of what’s made Dickison a revered chief within the franchising area. Along with Blockbuster, the place she rose to nationwide director of franchise operations, she was vp of franchise providers at Sylvan Studying, labored with the Residence Care Affiliation of America as board president and spent six years on the IFA’s Girls’s Franchise Committee.
She’s watched the variety of ladies within the business develop exponentially since her first IFA conference. “At my first IFA conference, there have been perhaps 30 ladies within the room,” Dickison says. “In the present day, there are tons of, and it has been unimaginable to observe that progress and to play a component in it.”
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“We’ve to guard this mannequin and make it simpler for franchisees to thrive.”
Now, as a newly-elected IFA board member, Dickison is concentrated on advocacy — educating lawmakers, shoppers and communities about what franchising actually is. “These aren’t large companies; these are native companies,” she says. “We’ve to guard this mannequin and make it simpler for franchisees to thrive — whether or not that is eliminating pointless crimson tape or enhancing entry to capital.”
That mission resonates deeply with the broader objectives of the IFA. Because the franchising business faces growing regulatory scrutiny and widespread misconceptions, Dickison’s voice brings each credibility and compassion to the desk. Her a long time of hands-on expertise — as a franchise chief, caregiver and advocate — equip her to talk not simply from a coverage standpoint, however from lived expertise.
“Emma’s experience and expertise in franchising will assist take the affiliation to new ranges so we will additional assist our members and the alternatives they create in native communities,” Matt Haller, IFA president and CEO, stated in an announcement.
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At Residence Helpers, Dickison continues to push for innovation. Beneath her management, the corporate launched the Cared-4 program in 2021, which layers in expertise, wellness calls and dietary assist alongside conventional in-home care. She additionally helped steer the model by means of the pandemic, working with state and federal leaders to make sure dwelling care was deemed important in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
“We got here out stronger,” she says. “Covid-19 put dwelling care on the map. It confirmed individuals how very important it’s — and the way significantly better it may be.”
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