Emma Nisbet began her career amid the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic—an experience she describes as “terrible and amazing and bittersweet.”
The pandemic had sent her home from BYU early and kept her there. After earning her marketing degree in June 2020, she began a consulting position with Deloitte and took her first meeting remotely from her dad’s office chair in her family home in Sacramento, California. Three days later, she lost her mom to breast cancer.
“My family was struggling with something really big, and starting my job in that environment was a little bit weird,” recalls Nisbet. “But it was an amazing summer in the sense that I got to have such wonderful family time even though the world was a mess.”
Nisbet feels blessed that the pandemic enabled her to soak up extra time with her mom before she passed and then grieve at home with her dad and younger brother and sister. “It would have been very hard for me if I hadn’t been able to be there,” she says.
After bereavement leave, Nisbet was met with empathy and compassion at Deloitte. The company gave Nisbet time off when she needed it, and she was partnered with a mentor who had also lost their mother. “My first teammates looked out for me, made sure I was in a good place with work, and offered empathy and human connection,” Nisbet explains. “That was wonderful and special to me in this nightmare of a situation.” The experience shaped the traits Nisbet values most in leadership and teamwork.
After a year, Nisbet moved to Deloitte’s Washington, DC, office to consult on government projects and bring industry solutions to public agencies. The work suited her strengths. “Puzzles and mysteries were the thing for me growing up,” she says—and she still loves a good problem to solve. “My joy in the work comes from the people I’m working with and the challenge of solving a problem; I’m not particular about what exactly we’re doing.”
That flexibility has proved invaluable as government agencies change and projects shift, rearranging the details of her work but not the broader strokes.
Nisbet’s success and diligence put her on an early promotion track; she advanced to senior consultant in 2022. She now lives in Lehi, Utah, working remotely for Deloitte with teams across the country while staying close with her siblings as they attend BYU.
As Nisbet has been purposefully open about losing her mom, she’s found connection with others who’ve had similar experiences. “It’s not over, but I’ve come out on the other side of the worst of the grief,” she says. She realizes that the peace she’s found isn’t something she can simply pass on to others—it’s a journey each person has to make on their own. “For me, it’s been an honor and a challenge, bonding with and bearing witness to people who have had similar experiences. . . . I’d like to share my story on a larger scale to help more people.”
