It’s been a dizzying rise from modest beginnings for Emma Grede, the girl from Plaistow who now heads up Kim Kardashian’s multibillion-dollar cult underwear brand Skims. She is Founding Partner and Chief Product Officer at the label, as well as being CEO of the size-inclusive brand Good American, founded with Khloe Kardashian. Her personal fortune is reported to be more than £275 million. 

Grede and her husband Jens are also founding investors in Kylie Jenner’s fashion line Khy, which was established in 2023. And in March 2024, the pair took a stake in luxury cashmere label The Elder Statesman. Raised in east London by a single mother, Grede dropped out of the London College of Fashion to work in PR because she could not afford to study full-time. She told The Guardian: “I was hustling seven days a week from 15 to 18.” 

She helped put together London Fashion Week shows, and later linked designers and other well-known names with high street brands and events. Now she has built an empire on the back of linking famous faces with products to supercharge sales.

In 2008, at the age of 26, she founded ITB, a London-based talent management and entertainment marketing business, with funding from Saturday Group. There, her partnership deals included linking Natalie Portman with Dior. Ten years later, global marketing and PR agency Rogers and Cowan acquired the business for an undisclosed sum. 

She set up the Good American denim label in 2016 as a response to campaigns that preached body inclusivity and diversity but did not make clothes to fit all. What started out as the largest denim launch in history, Good American has achieved $250 million in global sales. SKIMS, where Grede serves as Founding Partner, has now been valued at $4 billion, solidifying its success as a leading shapewear and apparel brand. 

Grede has appeared on TV entrepreneur shows including ABC’s Shark Tank and the BBC’s Dragons’ Den. Grede is also Chair of the Fifteen Percent Pledge, which encourages US retailers to dedicate 15 per cent of shelf space to black-owned businesses (black communities comprise 15 per cent of the US population).