The daughter of teachers,[2] she was educated at Hitchin Girls' School, and St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

Kennedy first met close friend Mel Giedroyc, who was appearing with the Cambridge Footlights, at the Edinburgh Festival in 1988.

She provided voices for The Comic Side of 7 Days and was a regular on the BBC Radio 2 comedy That Was Then, This Is Now with Richard Herring.

[4] Active in Comic Relief she was involved in setting up the kazoo orchestra concert at the Royal Albert Hall,[5] on 14 March 2011, which broke the Guinness World Record for the largest such ensemble.

[14] Kennedy took part in Celebrity MasterChef in 2012, winning the final after a week of cookery-based tasks, in which ex-footballer Danny Mills and TV presenter Michael Underwood also participated.

In Autumn 2020 Emma was a member of the Walruses in Series 16 of the BBC Two quiz show Only Connect alongside musical satirist Mitch Benn and Mastermind finalist Dan Adler.

[16] Kennedy has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since 2010,[17] becoming increasingly politically active by the end of the decade,[18] using her Twitter account to express opposition to Brexit.

In September 2019, she stood in hustings to be the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Surrey Heath, coming second (by three votes) to Alasdair Pinkerton.