Born and raised in East London in the ’80s, the eldest of four daughters in a single-parent household, Emma Grede’s route into business was anything but easy. She dropped out of school at 16 and built her career from the ground up — first in fashion show and events production, before starting launching her talent management and entertainment agency, Independent Talent Brand (ITB).
Today, Grede’s portfolio reads like a blueprint for cultural commerce: co-founder and CEO of Good American alongside Khloé Kardashian, founding partner and chief product officer of Skims with Kim Kardashian, co-founder of Safely alongside Kris Jenner and Chrissy Teigen, and co-founder of Kylie Jenner’s Khy. Add to that her role as chairwoman of the Fifteen Percent Pledge and board member of the Obama Foundation, and her influence stretches far.
Photo: Courtesy of Emma Grede
Now, with the UK release of her debut book Start With Yourself on April 14, Grede turns her attention to codifying that success. “There are just so many business books out there, but not nearly as many as there should be written by women, and definitely not by women who are mothers of four and who dropped out of high school,” she says. “I wanted to write something that would propel women forward. I am almost in a furious state right now in my feeling that we are so desperate for more women in positions of power, and for more women to have money. I think that is what is going to change our world.”
Ahead of the launch, Grede distills that philosophy over Zoom into five essential lessons in building a brand.
1. Extend your relevancy curve
A core pillar of Grede’s strategy is what she calls the “relevancy curve” — a shifting boundary that defines how far a brand can evolve without losing its credibility. The curve is rooted in her belief that most brands will have their moment, before eventually waning. The only way to endure, Grede argues, is to evolve with culture without departing from a brand’s central values.
“Often, to survive a downturn and extend a relevancy curve, everything about your business will need to change, except for the principles of the business itself,” she writes in her book. Grede points to Skims as proof. What began as an underwear and shapewear line, quickly expanded into categories the team had not predicted. “Two years later, we were making Skims clothing — out of the gate, nobody would have guessed that people would be falling over themselves to buy a ski puffer and pants from us in collaboration with The North Face. At face value, the product seems entirely different, and yet, at our heart, we are the same: a solutions-based clothing business focused on solving problems for customers.”
