From East London Council House to Kardashian Confidante
Emma Grede, the British business mastermind behind the Kardashian family's billion-dollar fashion empire, recently made an emotional return to her modest beginnings in Plaistow, east London. The 43-year-old entrepreneur, now worth an estimated £308 million, visited the three-bedroom terraced house where she was raised by her single mother alongside three younger sisters.
Posing outside the 1970s property that sold for just £55,000 in 1996, Grede told her one million Instagram followers: 'To know where you're going, you gotta know where you came from.' Her nostalgic trip came during a UK visit to celebrate her grandmother's 90th birthday.
Building a Billion-Dollar Fashion Empire
Grede's journey from East London to the epicentre of Hollywood glamour represents one of Britain's most remarkable business success stories. After meeting Kris Jenner at Paris Fashion Week while working in talent management, Grede pitched the idea for a size-inclusive denim brand.
This led to her partnership with Khloe Kardashian, launching Good American in 2016 - a company that generated $1 million in sales on its opening day. Just three years later, Kim Kardashian approached Grede to help launch shapewear brand Skims, now valued at $5 billion and preparing to open a flagship store on London's Regent Street next year.
Her business portfolio expanded to include Kris Jenner's plant-powered cleaning product company Safely and becoming a founding investor in Kylie Jenner's clothing line, Khy. This rapid success saw Forbes name Grede America's richest self-made woman under 40 in 2022.
Humble Beginnings Fuel Extraordinary Ambition
Born Emma Findlay in September 1982 to a BT engineer father of Jamaican and Trinidadian descent and an English mother who worked as an office manager, Grede's childhood was far from privileged. Her parents separated when she was young, leaving her mother to raise four daughters alone.
Grede has frequently credited her East End upbringing with providing the foundation for her success, despite what she describes as an environment 'void of aspiration'. She recalls: 'I didn't know anyone who owned their own business. Where I come from, everyone worked for someone else.'
Despite struggling academically and leaving Woodbridge High School at 16 with 'terrible GCSE grades', Grede discovered her entrepreneurial spirit early - taking on paper rounds and selling counterfeit t-shirts to teachers. She later discovered she was 'super dyslexic' in her twenties, a revelation that only strengthened her determination to succeed.
Her career began with an internship at Gucci aged 19, leading to roles in fashion marketing before founding ITB Worldwide at just 26. She sold this talent management business a decade later to marketing giant Rogers & Cowan for an undisclosed fee.
Transatlantic Success and Celebrity Connections
Grede's move to America in 2017 coincided with her rising prominence in business circles. She married Swedish-born businessman Jens Grede in 2012, with the couple initially settling in London's Bloomsbury district before relocating to Los Angeles as their ventures expanded.
The family now splits time between a spectacular seven-bedroom Bel Air mansion purchased for $24 million (£18.3 million) in 2020 and a £35 million cliff-top retreat in Malibu previously owned by Brad Pitt.
Grede has become a familiar face on American television as the first black female investor on Shark Tank (the US version of Dragon's Den) and through her business podcast featuring guests including Gwyneth Paltrow, Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama. Her influence continues to grow, recently joining the board of Barack Obama's foundation and hosting intimate dinners with the Duchess of Sussex.
Reflecting on her extraordinary journey while standing outside her childhood home, Grede observed: 'It's crazy to think how much a place can stay with you through your whole life no matter what happens. This place is where I learned my values.'
Now mother to four children herself, Grede maintains that her East End roots continue to shape her approach to both business and family life, proving that spectacular success can indeed grow from the most humble beginnings.
