{"id":27450,"date":"2026-04-15T11:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=27450"},"modified":"2026-04-15T11:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:51:12","slug":"kardashian-ally-emma-grede-on-being-an-ambitious-woman-and-billions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=27450","title":{"rendered":"Kardashian ally Emma Grede on being an ambitious woman and billions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"SpecialReportArticle-ArticleBody-6\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"SpecialReportArticle-articleBody-6-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\" \/><\/p>\n<div role=\"region\" aria-labelledby=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-108290668\">\n<div role=\"button\" id=\"Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-108290668\" class=\"PlaceHolder-wrapper\" data-vilynx-id=\"7000409507\" data-test=\"VideoPlaceHolder\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-videoEmbed\" id=\"InlineVideo-0\" data-test=\"InlineVideo\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"InlineVideo-inlineThumbnailContainer\"><span class=\"InlineVideo-videoButton\" \/><span \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of inclusive fashion brand Good American alongside Khlo\u00e9\u00a0Kardashian, and founding partner of Skims with Kim Kardashian, has had a boardroom seat to the billion-dollar impact social influence can have on business. But she says it takes a lot more than influence to turn ambition and ideas into lasting success, and she has plenty of advice from her path to self-made millionaire to offer other women.<\/p>\n<p>In Grede&#8217;s new book &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DQE1WMvjqDp\/\" target=\"_blank\">Start With Yourself<\/a>&#8220;, which came out Tuesday, she writes that women are often held back by how they are conditioned to think about money, leadership, and the permission to pursue their ambitions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of social conditioning that happens to us &#8230; &#8216;she&#8217;s a good girl,&#8217; and it teaches you to be small and be quiet and to be a pleaser,&#8221; Grede told CNBC&#8217;s Julia Boorstin during the latest episode of the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/09\/22\/cnbc-changemakers-power-players.html\">CNBC Changemakers and Power Players<\/a>&#8221; podcast, which was also released Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>That conditioning early in life can leave a long and lasting negative impact on women, Grede says. &#8220;If you sit in fear about sticking out or doing something wrong, it&#8217;s going to be really hard for you to start something new because you&#8217;re so fearful. And if you&#8217;re a people pleaser, you&#8217;re probably not going to say what you really mean. &#8230; And if your ambition to make a lot of money only lives inside of you, and you haven&#8217;t really vocalized it, then why should anybody pay you more?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/02\/24\/emma-grede-2025-changemakers.html\">Grede<\/a> was named to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025-changemakers\/\">2025 CNBC Changemakers<\/a> list. <\/p>\n<p>Here are a few more key takeaways from her CNBC podcast appearance where she discussed many of the themes in her new book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Being honest with yourself may need to be the first step in ambition.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Among Grede&#8217;s primary advice to women is take a hard look at what may be holding them back. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t we just get honest about some of this stuff and recognize what in our emotional lives is holding us back? Because once you understand it, you can start to correct it,&#8221; she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And that will help to have the confidence to pursue ambitions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I always talk about this idea of ambition being a little bit uncomfortable, and you need to be able to learn to lean into that discomfort,&#8221; said Grede, who grew up in East London and was raised by a single mom with limited financial resources. <\/p>\n<p>Then ambition has to be coupled with vision and a plan, and a lot of hard work. &#8220;Ambition needs to find you working,&#8221; Grede said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ideas are never enough.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/11\/09\/skims-co-founder-emma-grede-on-deal-making-skills-supporting-women.html\">long-running, successful partnerships<\/a> with the Kardashian family are built on more than just celebrity endorsements. &#8220;You\u00a0have to be able to have an intrinsic understanding of what your partnership brings and what it does together,&#8221; Grede said. &#8220;You have to be able to trust each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Kardashians did bring cultural reach, fame, and confidence, and Grede says she brought operational experience from having already <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/11\/04\/good-american-ceo-emma-grede-to-succeed-focus-on-what-you-dont-know.html\">run a successful business<\/a>. And both backgrounds have been critical to building structures that helped Skims and Good American grow in the areas of shapewear and inclusivity. &#8220;You choose one another. Here&#8217;s what I uniquely bring, and here&#8217;s what you uniquely bring. And that just flourished,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-108291105\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>Khlo\u00e9 Kardashian and Emma Grede attend the Good American Miami Launch Party at Good American on October 24, 2019 in Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander Tamargo | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">Grede, who has been a recurring judge on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;Shark Tank&#8221; and was the show&#8217;s first Black female investor, says entrepreneurs need to come to the table with more than just ideas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So many people have ideas,&#8221; she said. &#8220;My point of view is that coming to me with an idea is useless. I want to see the difference between somebody who has an idea, and someone who can get something started. When I get a PowerPoint presentation, that is one thing; it&#8217;s very different from getting a product &#8230; I like people that have started. I am not so interested in those that you know are sitting around waiting for someone magically to appear and make all their dreams come true,&#8221; she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Women cannot let any single failure deter them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Grede&#8217;s perspective is shaped partly by failure. She launched a global talent and brand agency, but failed when she attempted to expand the business to Los Angeles. &#8220;I failed miserably,&#8221; Grede said. But she did not allow that failure to define her trajectory. &#8220;That situation was bad, that thing didn&#8217;t work. But what can I take from that?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She argues that failure becomes more emotionally sticky for women than men, particularly when it turns inward and becomes self doubt. There will be bad days, she says, but you &#8220;take the learnings and move on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What I don&#8217;t like is this thought that everything is so finite, that as women, you have a failure, and that failure should then live with you forever, because we don&#8217;t apply those same rules to men. When a man has a terrible failure in business and loses a ton of money, and his thing goes under, he goes, &#8216;Well, you know, that was a disaster, on to the next one.&#8217; Whereas a woman, she&#8217;s like, &#8216;I did this terrible thing, and it sits with me.&#8217; No, no. Enough of that. &#8230; things happen. You learn from them, you live with them, you move on,&#8221; Grede said. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>For success at work, you need to be in the office.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For women who are currently in corporate settings, Grede \u2014 who worked in the corporate world before building her own businesses \u2014 says visibility will play a major role in career advancement, even in a world where remote work is still popular. In-office work experience compounds over time, and often determines who gets the next promotion or responsibility, Grede says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A great career requires visibility, and it requires proximity, and there&#8217;s nothing else that can replicate that,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You might not like to hear it, but you are not being considered for the same promotion and pay increase while you work from your living room as somebody that&#8217;s there in the office every day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You won&#8217;t catch Grede on many video conferences. &#8220;I refuse all Zooms,&#8221; she said. &#8220;My team will tell you, it really has to be an emergency for me to be on a video call.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow and listen to this and every episode of the &#8220;CNBC Changemakers and Power Players&#8221; podcast on<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cnbc-changemakers-power-players\/id1840209228\" target=\"_blank\"><em>\u00a0<\/em>Apple<\/a><em>\u00a0and<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/1ZqQQxtXROfgDDmy4UqTaz\" target=\"_blank\"><em>\u00a0<\/em>Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ArticleBody-googlePreferredSourceContainer\" data-module=\"GooglePreferredSource\" data-id=\"SpecialReportArticle-GooglePreferredSource-6\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\">\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/14\/kardashians-emma-grede-skims-good-american.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of inclusive fashion brand Good American alongside Khlo\u00e9\u00a0Kardashian, and founding partner of Skims with Kim Kardashian, has had a boardroom seat to the billion-dollar impact social influence can have on business. But she says it takes a lot more than influence to turn ambition and ideas into lasting success, and &#8230; <a title=\"Kardashian ally Emma Grede on being an ambitious woman and billions\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=27450\" aria-label=\"Read more about Kardashian ally Emma Grede on being an ambitious woman and billions\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Kardashian-ally-Emma-Grede-on-being-an-ambitious-woman-and.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27452,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27450\/revisions\/27452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}