Emma Grede was already pretty successful on her own before collaborating with the Kardashians, but her involvement with the family propelled her to become a powerhouse. A hustler from the get-go, she dropped out of college in her early 20s and immediately dipped her toes into the professional world by working for a concierge company and then a production company that staged fashion shows. It’s with the latter that she found what she was good at — being the middleman between designers and brands. “I understood how contracts worked, and I was very good at getting stuff off of people, and I kind of finally felt like oh I’ve hit my stride,” she explained in an appearance on the “No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis” podcast.
At 24 years old, she founded the influencer agency ITB Worldwide, which specializes in brokering deals between celebrities and big brands. She was instrumental in solidifying partnerships between Natalie Portman and Dior and Kendall Jenner and Calvin Klein. “I realized very, very quickly how working with talent can really accelerate a business,” she added. Through her agency, she met Kris Jenner, to whom she then pitched her idea for Good American, telling the famous momager that she thought Khloe Kardashian would be a good business partner. “It sounds cliché, but she [Khloe] really did finish my sentences,” she shared with Essence.
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The two launched the brand in 2016 and sold $1 million worth of products on the first day. Grede helped Kim Kardashian launch Skims three years later, and in 2021, together with Kris and Chrissy Teigen, she launched the cleaning brand Safely.
