Emma Grede

The savvy east London fashion entrepreneur who is truly keeping up with the Kardashians.

- By Sarah Manavis

Who is the mastermind of the Kardashian empire? Familiar characters spring to mind: the matriarch “mom-ager”, Kris Jenner; perhaps Kim, who takes credit for her family’s fame. Maybe the simplest answer is reality TV.

But should we be thinking of Emma Grede? The 42-year-old east London-born entrepreneur is the woman behind some of the family’s most lucrative ventures in the past decade. She is a co-founder of Kris’s cleaning product company, Safely, and Khloe’s inclusive denim line, Good American, where she also serves as chief executive. She is a founding partner, as well as chief product officer, of Kim’s shapewear and clothing brand, Skims. In 2023, she became a founding investor in Kylie Jenner’s clothing line, Khy.

Grede has been quietly but intimately involved in the family’s reputational transformation that has taken them from “trashy reality stars” to serious businesswomen. These businesses aren't just PR gambits either: Good American is valued at $3bn (£2.3m) and Skims at $4bn as of 2023. As of last May, Grede’s own net worth is $390m.

Her ascent is something she frames as a rags-to-riches story. She has described her upbringing as “really poor”, growing up in Plaistow as the oldest of four daughters to immigrant parents from Jamaica and Trinidad, raised from a young age solely by her mother. Despite her story of struggling to pay bills, she says her drive comes from her mother - who, in fact, worked on Morgan Stanley’s Swiss trading desk.

She says she always had the “gift of the gab”, trying to sell products to teachers at her comprehensive school, and always looking for new ways to make money. “I was born that way,” she said on the Trading Secrets podcast this month. “My entire career started from being a hungry little monster. Being a little hustler and leaning into whatever opportunity was in front of me.”