Emma Grede didn't grow up near Silicon Valley tech founders or Manhattan financiers.
Raised by a single mom in East London, Grede didn't know "anyone that owned their own business," she recently told Jay Shetty, a former monk turned life coach and author, on his podcast "On Purpose."
Today, Grede is the CEO and co-founder of apparel company Good American, and a founding member and chief product officer of shapewear brand SKIMS. She's built relationships along the way: Her business partners for those companies are Khloé Kardashian and Kim Kardashian, respectively.
But she credits a large part of her success to advice her mother gave her when she was little.
"I really value myself and I really value my goals, and I don't think [success] is much more complicated than that," Grede, who has a reported net worth of $320 million, said on the podcast. "I was taught that by my mom, who was very much like, 'Listen, Emma. You're not better than anybody else, but nor is anyone better than you.'"
The lesson taught Grede that she could learn alongside her peers at any job, then carry that knowledge onward when it was time for bigger and better things, she said.
Leaders need confidence and humility, experts say
Whether she knew it or not, Grede's mother was teaching her daughter an important leadership lesson, according to Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant.
"Confidence without humility breeds blind arrogance, and humility without confidence yields debilitating doubt," Grant wrote in a 2022 Wharton blog post, referencing research he conducted for one of his books. "Confident humility is being secure enough in your expertise and strengths to admit your ignorance and weaknesses."
Grede started learning that balance at age 12, when she landed her first job: a paper route. She later worked other jobs, including at a sandwich deli and a restaurant, and aimed to gain skills and knowledge from each role, she told Shetty.
"In that deli ... I was going to make you the best turkey sandwich you had in your life," Grede said. "I can take pride in anything, and I also take a huge amount of learnings from everything."
In 2008, Grede started London-based entertainment marketing agency ITB Worldwide. The agency reeled in clients like Natalie Portman and Kris Jenner, and those relationships fueled further partnerships, Grede told CNBC Make It in 2021.
Grede co-founded Good American in 2016. Two years later, she helped launch SKIMS, which is reportedly worth $4 billion, as of July 2023.
She sold ITB Wordwide to PR agency Rogers & Cowan for an undisclosed amount in 2018.
"I always felt like if I worked hard enough and I really put everything into it that I could achieve," Grede said on the podcast. "I still feel like that today. I don't expect things to be easy, but I've never had a sense of I couldn't."
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