The Tamesis
Emma Grede was born and raised in East London in the 1980s, the eldest of four daughters from a single-parent family, and her path to business was anything but smooth. She dropped out of school at 16 and began her career from scratch – first working in fashion show and event production before moving on to launch her own talent management and entertainment agency, Independent Talent Brands (ITB).
Today, Grede’s portfolio reads like a blueprint for cultural commerce: Co-founder and CEO of Good American with Khloé Kardashian, Skims with Kim Kardashian, Safely with Kris Jenner and Chrissy Teigen, and co-founder of Kylie Jenner’s Khy. Combined with her roles as chair of the Fifteen Percent Pledge and as a board member of the Obama Foundation, her influence is profound.
Photo: Courtesy of Emma Greder
Now, with the UK release of her debut start with yourself On April 14, Grede turned his attention to documenting this success. “There are so many business books out there, but not nearly as many as they should be written by women, and definitely not by women who are mothers of four and high school dropouts,” she said. “I wanted to write something that would move women forward. I’m almost in a rage right now because I feel like we’re so hungry for more women in power, more women with money. I think that’s going to change our world.”
Before launch, Grede distilled Zoom’s philosophy into five essential lessons for building a brand.
1. Extend your correlation curve
A central pillar of Grede’s strategy is what she calls the “relevance curve”—an ever-evolving boundary that defines how far a brand can grow without losing credibility. The curve is rooted in her belief that most brands have their moments of glory and then eventually decline. Grader believes the only way to last is to evolve with the culture without straying from the brand’s core values.
“Often, in order to survive a downturn and extend the correlation curve, everything about your business needs to change except the principles of the business itself,” she writes in her book. Greider cites “Skims” as evidence. What started as a line of lingerie and shapewear quickly expanded into categories the team never anticipated. “Two years later, we started making Skims apparel – and at first, no one would have imagined that people would be rushing to buy the ski suits and ski pants we partnered with The North Face. On the surface, the product seemed completely different, but at heart, we were the same: a solutions-based apparel company focused on solving problems for its customers.”
