CAREER
There’s a new guest Dragon with stacks of cash ready to invest: meet Emma Grede, the business brains behind Good American and SKIMS. She shares her career secrets and strategies with Arielle Steele
You’ll already know that the Kardashian family is more than just a Hollywood dynasty – it’s a business powerhouse. With a combined Instagram following of more than 1.2bn, the uber-famous siblings and their mother, Kris, preside over a smorgasbord of extremely successful brands, covering everything from swimwear to lipstick to cleaning products.
What you might not know is there’s another secret ingredient to their business empire – and she goes by the name of Emma Grede.
London-bor n Grede is the CEO and co-founder of Khloé’s inclusive denim brand, Good American. Stocked in the likes of Selfridges and John Lewis & Partners, in a size range of UK 2-28, the company made headlines in 2016 when it brought in $1m on its launch day. She’s also a founding partner and chief product officer for Kim’s gargantuan lingerie brand, SKIMS (where her husband, Jens, serves as CEO). Known for its diverse colour range and flattering silhouettes, the brand is estimated to be worth $4bn. And if that wasn’t enough, Grede also co-founded Safely, a plant-powered cleaning brand, teaming up with the family’s ‘momager’, Kris.
Clearly, these brands are not your standard celebrity-endorsed ventures – they offer good-quality products that are loved by even the most Kardashian-sceptic and, importantly, they all fulfil a need. This purpose is crucial to Grede’s business ethos. ‘Nobody needs more stuff, right?’ she says. ‘I don’t believe that people buy what you have to sell; they buy why you do it. Access and inclusivity has always been the core driving force.’
Although Grede has worked largely behind the scenes, she’s becoming a household name in her own right. Having appeared as the first Black female guest ‘shark’ on the US investment programme Shark Tank, she’s now crossed back over the Atlantic to appear as a guest dragon on a similarly celebrated TV show, the BBC’s long-running Dragons’ Den.
‘It’s a real full-circle moment for me to be back in the UK,’ she beams when we speak over Zoom. ‘My gran is a massive fan of the show, so it’s a huge moment for her.’
She’s dialling in from her LA office and looks every bit the unattainably glamorous CEO, all shiny hair and flawless makeup. But I feel instantly comfortable chatting to her, thanks to her booming laugh and distinct East End accent. ‘If happiness was on a scale, my default is, like, a solid seven or eight,’ she says – and I believe her. I get the sense that she’s extremely smart but also a lot of fun, so it’s easy to see why one of Amer
