Emma Grede, the $1B Brand Architect, on Transforming Celebrity Businesses and Ignoring Career Advice

While the Kardashian-Jenner clan gets most of the spotlight, Emma Grede is the business mastermind transforming their celebrity into commerce—and building a formidable empire of her own in the process. Her resume alone might trigger an existential crisis in the most accomplished among us. She also wakes up at 4:45 in the morning (more on that later). As co-founder and CEO of Good American, founding partner of SKIMS, and chairwoman of The Fifteen Percent Pledge, Grede’s reshaping the business world one celebrity brand at a time. 

She gives business hopefuls searing advice on Shark Tank. She hosts her own podcast, Aspire with Emma Grede. Yet despite her staggering success, Grede remains eloquently humble and describes herself as a lifelong learner. “If we are not growing, we die… I don’t imagine that I know everything, have learned everything, or that I’m always right. For me, you have to always be learning for your business and yourself. It’s another way of thinking about ‘how am I growing as a person?’” Grede shares. 

If you want the unvarnished reality of hustle culture from someone who’s mastered it, Grede’s return to The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast delivers. 

Emma Grede’s childhood

Growing up, Grede was one of four girls to a single mom. “There was an element of ‘figure it out’. No one was going to make me dinner or make my bed for me. We just had to do stuff ourselves.”

Not having things handed to her as a kid benefited Grede in the long run. She learned early on that if she wanted something, she was going to have to go earn it. Even as a little girl, her mom instilled in her that she was as good and as deserving as anyone else, as long as she worked hard. So that’s exactly what she did.

Grede has instilled a similar mindset into her kids to “just be excellent at something and to care about something” no matter what it was. Although her children are still young, she wants her four kids—Grey, Lola, and twins Lake and Rafferty—to take responsibility for their own growth and learning, just as she did.

It’s time to reframe ‘passion’ in the workplace

Between the ages of 18 and 28, Grede wasn’t working dream jobs. She was working to pay bills, a reality most of us understand intimately. As an entrepreneur, she offers a refreshing counterpoint to the “follow your passion” narrative that dominates career advice. Her golden insight: “You won’t love what you do straight out of the gate. You work to get to that place.”

For those searching for purpose, Grede says stop asking, “What is my purpose?” Reframe it more practically to: “How am I going to pay my bills and make ends meet? What can I do that has a tiny bit of interest in it for me?” She says, “You shouldn’t chase purpose. You should chase what you’re good at and your skills. Hopefully, within that you can find some purpose.”

Grede’s own career began in retail, with a simple motivation: She liked clothes and could get a discount. The main purpose of working those grueling shifts on Saturdays at minimum wage was that she wanted a job around the fashion industry.

Her message is clear: That entry-level job won’t be your endgame. “Anyone I know has had a bunch of jobs they didn’t find enjoyable or valuable to them. You have to find a way to make them something for you,” she says. “There’s absolutely no way you’re going to find purpose in work, make a ton of money, and find the ideal job before you’ve gone through those things that are not so great.”

Emma Grede’s business mentality 

Self-awareness about strengths and weaknesses forms the cornerstone of Grede’s leadership philosophy. She describes herself as a product person and is brilliant at planning, merchandising, design, and production. Logistics, e-commerce, and AI? Not her acumen. So she brings the right people together to meet the goals of the company—what she calls an “enterprise mentality.” 

“It’s about the company and the company’s goals coming first. It’s not about me. At the end of the day, if you take something like SKIMS—SKIMS is Kim Kardashian’s company. That’s her vision. That’s what she wanted to create. My job is to make sure that that actually happened,” she says.

In a true enterprise, Grede believes, no single individual is indispensable. “If I don’t turn up, the companies will still thrive. They will do what they set out to do because they’re set up to do that. That is their primary function.”

A day in the life of Emma Grede

Grede’s typical day (we know you’re curious) does not typically include glam, contrary to what one might expect from someone so deeply embedded in the Kardashian universe. But, like the Kardashian enterprise, the mom of four is a dedicated organizer and scheduler with a regimented routine. Her day begins around 4:45 a.m., with a cup of coffee in her hand by 4:50 a.m. After a 90-minute workout (no, she’s not going all-out for an hour and half—per her trainer’s advice, she’s slow and deliberate about warming up), the kids are up and ready for breakfast by 7:30.

Grede tries to make the most of whatever she’s doing: If she is wearing a full face of makeup, it’s for a day packed with multiple events. She goes to the office daily, and hybrid/remote culture is not for her or her teams. All of her businesses are in the same building in Hollywood, which allows her to oscillate between SKIMS, Good American, and Off Season. Her workday consists of meetings and problem-solving until she heads home by 5:30 p.m. for dinner, bath time, and bedtime routines, followed by some additional work before bed. (She clarifies that she does not start her mornings on the phone.) 

For self-care, Grede has embraced meditation. “I’m 100 percent sure that I got it all wrong about meditation,” Grede admits. “It’s not about being quiet in the mind. I think It’s about reenergizing myself. What usually happens to me after the meditation is that I get all these ideas. I’ve just been given like this burst of energy.” 

What else gets Grede through a day? Lots of tea, which is very British of her, and protein-focused meals. She’s currently reading The Tools by celebrity therapist Phil Stutz and shares how therapy has been part of her life since she was young. “I go through stints. It’s like I’ll be doing therapy for two or three years. Then, I’ll have a bit of time off and then I’ll go back,” she says.

For more on how Grede gets it all done, including balancing Shark Tank and her philanthropic work, listen to the full episode of The Skinny Confidential, out now.