Emma Grede, businesswoman

23:48So it's not possible. But that's how I imagine it. And I just think it is the most beautiful thing. And I use this like in meditations and I think about my wedding day and I just I love it. I love it so much.

24:31Ryoichi Sakamoto and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. So that was used at your wedding to Jens greet. You met him, a Swedish businessman, and it was business at first for the two of you, wasn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. So a friend had arranged a meeting between the two of you. He was with a marketing company called The Saturday Group. What was your pitch to him? Because you were pitched to him, I think. Again, I had nothing to lose. I'd left this job that I was at and I'd heard that these guys were doing really interesting things and that this little agency. And so I went in with all the chat like I would anyway.

25:03I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to build this company. The company is going to be amazing because I genuinely felt like I would. It turns out I did. But at that time, I had nothing. All I had was my reputation. With that, there was enough there for them to say, this is somebody that we should invest in. And then I just hustled. I got on the phone. I drummed up business. I started from scratch. It was just me for about four months. Then I got an assistant. Then I hired somebody. And the company just grew and grew and grew and grew. So I had, you know, offices in New York, in LA, in Paris.

25:35It was just, it was so crazy. Now I look back on it. But it was my naivety that actually was my single best thing. That and my work ethic. So Jens obviously saw your business vision. And what about the two of you? At what point did you realise that there was more to that relationship? Oh, I loved him immediately, but that wasn't appropriate. It was clear that I loved him because he wrote the offer on a piece of paper in my Muji notebook that I still have to this day. So I kept it like a sap. You know, it was very difficult because I understood that Jens and his business partner were really so instrumental in me being able to make a success of what was going to become my first company.

26:12And so there was that part of it. But then I also just was like falling in love. And so over, you know, the next kind of year that happened and it was wonderful. So you founded your first company, ITB, Independent Talent Brand, and you were an early adopter of social media and really very quickly understood the power of influence. How did you, how do you explain that power to the unconverted? Having started from the very beginning was a real advantage because I worked on celebrity partnerships, traditional celebrity partnerships where you would get, you know, Michael Caine or Natalie Portman, Angelina Jolie into a campaign with a big brand.

26:52And what happened is the influence, meaning the ability to influence people to buy things, started to shift from all of those names we knew to a bunch of names that we didn't know because the Internet was making people famous who had never had an opportunity before. And so for me, what happened is instead of doing these big giant deals, we started doing a volume of like lots and lots of smaller deals. So we still work for the same clients, L 'Oreal, Calvin Klein, H &M, but we were booking hundreds of talent. These people are far more relatable. We didn't call them influencers then. They were bloggers.

27:23They're going to create these sort of like little micro communities. And so if you had a brand that was trying to get to a fly fishing community, you could use the Internet to do that. And I just saw that. I was like, this is going to be huge. and more than that, it was cheap. So if you had a brand you couldn't afford Natalie Portman, you could say, do you know what you can have instead? And that was part of me as a wheeler dealer, part of me as a deal maker, but really seeing into the future and clearly understanding that nobody owned that territory because none of these people had agents, managers, publicists.

27:52You were dealing with their mum or their boyfriend. I'm amazing with both mums and boyfriends, by the way. So I'd be like, hi, your daughter's amazing and I wonder if I can pay her like$5 ,000 to do this thing. And it was like the Wild West, but I created an entire business. I was like, let's go. As you say, it grew really quickly. But obviously the tricky thing about that is that as your successes get bigger, so do your failures. And obviously not everything works. You opened a branch of ITB in LA and that didn't work out. How did you respond? How do you respond when things don't go to plan? I'm not going to lie and say I just dusted it off.

28:25I mean, what I did really quickly was understood that it wasn't about me alone. And also look at the bigger picture here because actually what it did was set me up for Good American to be hugely successful because I understood where I went wrong. I understood what LA was. What I always want to say specifically to women is when you internalise messages about what you've done and where you've failed and you chalk them all up to being only about you, you do yourself a massive disservice because it's never about one thing. So you've got to have some distance from a situation to say what actually happened here and what was because of me and what was because of other stuff.

29:05And then you can figure it out and you just move on. We'll find out where that journey took you after this next track. What is it? Disc number five. Talking of LA, I mean, first of all, I'm a huge rap fan. And when I first ever went to LA, so I went when I was about 12 years old because my aunt was a nanny for some celebrity and we got to stay in his house while he was away. I don't think he knew. And I learned two things. Tupac and Warren G. And it was like, to me, in my life, was like the birth of the West Coast rap scene. And this song has been in my life, like ever since. It's Regulate, Warren G.

29:41And Warren G had such a beautiful face. I just loved him. I just like, I literally loved him so much. I still love him.

30:16Warren G and Nate Dogg regulate. So Emma Greed, your career was thriving, but alongside all of that, you also wanted to start a family. How easy was it for you to decide that it was the right time? It's something that I talk about a lot, actually, because, you know, the idea of when to start a family or if to start a family, as the case might be for so many people, is something that really plagues women. I feel like I spent my entire 20s just trying not to get pregnant. And then when I had my third and fourth kid, I was like, it's not even my choice. Like, number one and two, I had like literally, you know, like so easily, like the dream scenario, decide to get pregnant, was pregnant.

30:56When it came to the third and fourth kid, I really, really struggled and, you know, had issues with infertility. And it's so heartbreaking when you go through that. But the decision for me was easy because I had a really supportive partner. Jens is Swedish and Swedish men are the whole society. Like Sweden is a really matriarchal society. And there was never this thing of like, I'm going to have a baby. It was like we and our family have made a decision to have children. and I always knew that I was going to have a real partner in that. The day I had Grey, I'd never even been more ambitious. This is your first son.

31:34Because I literally was like, oh, now I know what I'm doing this for. It's not even all about me. Now you've got somebody to show things to and hand things down to. And it all kind of made sense to me. Not once did I ever think that I would need to sacrifice who I was because I'd become a mum. I was like, oh, being a mum is actually going to make me so much better because I'm just going to be smarter and more decisive and more clear with my time. And I think all of that has been true for me. And the whole family went on the journey with you. I mean, literally, you relocated from London to L.A.

32:09Can you believe it? I mean, how does it feel as an East London girl to be raising American kids? You always imagine your kids are going to be like little versions of you. And mine are nothing like me. they are so chill like so chill it's like California like kids like slow I'm like come on come on come on faster I remember getting to LA and watching some woman that worked for me stand up from her desk and walk to the printer and I was like I'm not going to be able to live here she's just too slow no but my kids are different and you know what I've realised is that I can't manufacture which are hardships for them, right?

32:49Like I can't go out of my way to create obstacles because they are living a very, very different life to the reality of how I was raised. And so I used to really torture myself. It's like, how can I like a bunch of kids who were raised in Bel-Air? Like I'm never going to enjoy them. And the truth is that they are amazing and they're just their own people and they're entirely separate from me. So Emma, in 2016, you launched a denim brand called Good American and you co-founded it with Khloe Kardashian. and it was your idea initially. What was the opportunity that you'd identified? Having worked in this brand partnership landscape, there was so much performance happening.

33:26You know, people would cast, you know, a campaign so it looked super diverse. They would, you know, bring in models of all different sizes and the reality is none of the clothes actually worked for them. And the plus-size business, you know, specifically in America, I think the statistic is that 68 % of women are technically plus-sized and, you know, the average height of women is 5 '4". Well, all clothes are cut on a 5 '6 model. And when I started doing my research, I was like, well, who made the rules? Well, guess who made the rules? Like a bunch of dudes who don't wear the clothes. And so I understood within that that there was an opportunity to create something that would cater to different types of bodies.

34:02And, you know, when we started Good American, I never imagined what happened with that company. Because it was what it meant to people, I think. It was that people felt seen, heard and represented. We were the first people to, if you chose a size 14, you could see it on a size 14 because guess what? It doesn't look like it looks on a size 4. And it was a huge hit, as you say. You and Chloe were both very successful with that. And then in 2019, her sister Kim approached you and Jens to launch the shapewear brand Skims. I mean, what's it like collaborating with a family whose every move makes tabloid headlines?

34:34Well, you know, there's pluses and minuses to any of these things. And I think at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the product. You can have a shortcut to a customer, meaning you can market and get the attention and the audience of that individual. But if you sell them a bad product, all that you've got is a microphone for what isn't working. And the problem and the beauty of the Internet meant there's this whole new way to reach customers. There was a whole new way to amplify customers' voices when they were dissatisfied. So we were lucky because we were pleasing people. But there's a double edged sword, right?

35:05The minute you get something wrong, the Internet will go absolutely mental. Let's have some more music. I'm agreed. to your sixth choice today. What's next? You know, like, music does things to you. So if Warren G kind of takes me back and if Robin S, like, just gives me, like, this, like, throw your hands up in the air, this song is so soothing to me because it's like a lullaby for adults. Like, I feel like somebody is, like, rubbing my head and telling me it's going to be all right when this music comes in and the strings comes in. Like, you could cry. I could cry even thinking about it. It is Stand By Me, Benny King, and I think it is beauty.

35:41When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see. No, I won't be afraid Oh, I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand Stand by me Benny King and Stand By Me. Emma Greed, in recent years, you've decided to start growing your public profile on TV as an investor on Dragon's Den. You were also the first black woman as an investor on the US equivalent Shark Tank. And you've written a book and launched a podcast. Why did you decide to step out from behind the scenes like that? Even as you say it, like you made the decision, it was almost like the decision was made for me.

36:37Because what happens when you become successful, people start to write your story. There was almost like this imagined shortcut that I turned up in America, switched on a light and went, hello, it's me, the billion dollar baby. And I was like, people don't understand that I've had a job since I was 12 years old. And I almost felt like I was kind of doing a disservice, especially to young women who were like, I want to be like her. I want to work with celebrities. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because there was years before that of grafting and toiling and making mistakes and building and failing.

37:09And so here's what it actually took. And I think specifically because we're in such a social media landscape now, the way that everything is kind of boiled down into these 30 second clips I've watched some of them about me and I'm like who's that chick I wish do you know what I mean so in my own way I thought it will be way more useful specifically to women to demystify the idea that I wake up in the morning roll out of bed that my hair is done that my children are done you know I've taken them all to school and done all the things and I'm like ta-da because it's like my life is a series of trade-offs and the way that I work is there's so many sacrifices within all of that.

37:49I mean the book obviously is connected with people hugely successful but it was interesting the way that some elements of the press have picked up on something you said about motherhood that you're a max three-hour mum. Did they misinterpret the point that you were making? No they didn't they wish they misinterpreted it because what everybody wants you to do is go no no no no no I didn't mean that I'm like I love my children and I want to spend every waking hour with them. I do and I don't of course i love them but i also didn't like pop out kids and turn into some other version of myself i'm still me like you don't become me and then suddenly be like oh do you know what i just want to stay at home and like trad wife it i don't i love my kids but i don't love legos plenty of people feel that way they just don't want to say it because the bad mum connotations are too much to deal with and i refuse to accept that i refuse to say that actually because i go out and i work really hard and I have an amazing relationship to work and I really really love what I do that doesn't mean I'm not equally a fantastic parent and so I thought you know what would be better instead of me like lying to everyone just tell the truth and talk about the help that you have honestly because I'm like of course I have four kids I have loads of money of course I have nannies I'm not hiding them like they are there all the time and you're happy to have the conversation I I mean, what about the debate that sparked when you said that working from home is career suicide?

39:11That work-life balance is the employee's responsibility. You would have thought that I'd killed somebody. I was telling the truth of my experience, which is to say that what has worked for me is proximity to incredible people that have been able to help me. What's worked for me is visibility, being in an office where people could see how I move and they could say, do you know what? She's great and we're going to work with her, invest in her, give her business. What's worked for me is to be really honest about the fact that post-COVID, and I know that people really enjoy the freedom that working from home and the flexibility that they gave them, which I give in all of my companies and expect for myself.

39:49I leave the office every day at 5pm, every single day without fail. But to imagine that some of that doesn't come with a trade-off, that you can still expect an incredible career without incredible effort, is just not true. And I understand that working from home and having that flexibility is so incredibly important, specifically for women. But let's have an awareness of what we're trading off. OK, Emma, it's time for some more music. It's disc number seven. What have you chosen? It's Oasis Morning Glory. As an English girl that grew up when I grew up, Oasis, like, was just it. I could have chosen so, so many songs.

40:27Did you see them live recently? Okay, can I tell you? Of course I did. But I saw him in LA. Biggest mistake of my life. And this is like one of the trade-offs. I'm in a board meeting. So I couldn't get back to England to come to one of the shows here. And all my friends were going. And I had the tickets. And I'd done the suite. Had the whole thing ready. Couldn't do it. So I was like, doesn't matter, Emma. You'll go in LA. So I went with all my best English things. It just wasn't the same. It was amazing. But it wasn't what I'd seen on the internet. Do you know what I mean? everyone's 100 ,000 just everyone's singing and so that annoyed me a little bit but still me and my darling friend Jamie Girdler we sang for two hours we sweated you were representing the UK oh was I I was like waiting for everyone else just to sing Wonderwall I was like you losers but anyway this song I just I love this song so much

41:26Need a little time to rest your mind. You know you're shut, so I guess you might as well.

41:37What's the story, morning glory? Well, Oasis and morning glory. So Emma Gree, the through line in your story has, I think, been self-belief. You had it from the beginning, but do you think it's something that you can grow, that anyone can cultivate? Yes and no. You know, it's something that, like anything else, you have to work on it because you've got to teach yourself what type of person you want to be. I think we're all in training to become the type of person that we want to be eventually. And so you have to be deliberate about it. And so often I think I found myself in my life just like behaving the way that I'd like to feel.

42:22Like, you know, I'm not a gym person, but I want to look like one. So I just go. I have to go. you know and you mentioned your vision statement for each decade of your life I mean you've still got a while to go but you did say that you'd started working on your vision for your 50s yeah well you know my 50s I always thought about being in a position because again I come from a family where everybody worked a job to pay the bills right like nobody worked in some passion or like something that they felt like you know was their purpose and I feel like goodness me like what a joy to be in a position where I mean I don't even need to go to work right I go there because I absolutely love it I love the people I love the smell of the place I love the work I love the culture I've created and so there's a sense of responsibility right because when I come back to England I feel really kind of indebted to the place that gave me so much as a kid that you know somehow there's like some some way that I could like be impactful and use the success that I've had to actually do something that actually makes a difference.

43:29And thinking back to that little kid to little Emma making those packed lunches what would you think of all that you've done if you could see it? You know I would be so proud of me you know when you when you're little you're like oh you know I just want to make all my dreams come true like I literally feel like I do that every day and I do it with so much heart do you know what I mean it's like every day I'm really a thoughtful person I like to make like a perfect cup of tea and I like to see like things looking beautiful in my office and I like to have a good meeting and I like to leave people feeling like oh that was like a good use of two hours of my time do you know what I mean and so if you put the maximum amount in effort, attention, care, kindness, like whatever it might be, like you're bound to get that back.

44:17That's just the way the universe works, right? And so I feel like if I keep doing that, then that's just what's going to come back to me. Well, this leads me to your island experience because I think you're going to relish it and you're going to give it your all. Can you imagine? I would be setting that island up. We'd be making something. I mean, what are you picturing? I think you'll be there, like you'd be building. you'll be getting 100 it would be like an industrial megaplex by the time i'm finished so what do you think will be the biggest challenge on the island you will be totally on your own fended for yourself how do you think you'll get on well we know i can do that like that part's easy i think that the hardest part for me you know what a waste i'm such a good chatter yeah yeah that energy firecracker yeah you know it's so funny because i'm such a person who thrives around other people.

45:09Well, we'll let you take one more track with you before you go. It's your final choice, Emma Greed. What's it going to be? I am obsessed with Adele. I love her so much. You must have met her out in LA as experts. Of course, babes. We're like best mates. No, we are not best mates, but I have met her a couple of times. But she'll be like, hi, Emma. She knows my name. So exciting. I have hung out for a party and I sat next to her and I was like, this is so cool because I'm chatting to Adele. But she knows I was thinking that because I was really drunk. Anyway, so I love her. I'm a humongous fan but this particular version of the song is like so me because it's Adele but it's like a drum and bass remix which again when I was a kid that scene of sort of like jungle, house, garage like those unmistakably British music was like such a massive part of my upbringing and of course I chose Hometown Glory because I'm in my hometown I like it in the city when the air is so thick and opaque.

46:06I love it to see everybody in a short skirt and short so chain and deep. I like it in the city when two worlds collide. You get the people and the government and everybody taking different sights. I'm my hometown, making more reasons of praise. Adele and Hometown Glory, the high contrast remix. So I'm agreed it's time to cast you away to your desert island. I'm giving you the books to take along with you. You can have the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare and one other book of your choice. What's that going to be? OK, so the book that I chose is The Prophet by Cahill Gibran. And you can imagine that for me, I really wasn't brought up like with any kind of spirituality or religion specifically.

46:58I certainly wasn't like exposed to poetry or literature in in like a big way and so this was given to me by my uncle's girlfriend who you know she was just the most beautiful thing she looked like Bridget Bardot and I thought she was so beautiful and she was like really hippie and she like did you know tarot cards and she was just so so cool and it was just really formative for me because I never heard some of the ideas that were presented in that book. The one that I think about now is when he writes on children, like your children are not your children. They're the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.

47:34They come through you, but not from you. And even as I speak and I think about my kids, I think, oh, my God, like how crazy that that could be written. And that sat in me. And at the time I was such a kid, I was like, yeah, mum, like I am not, you know, like from you, I'm not of you. I just am my own thing. and you know it's actually kind of amazing to think how writing can be so timeless like that and words have a way of doing that like I could be like so transported by a song or a book and that was one of the things that for me was like lifted me out of where I was in Plasto and made me think like oh there's so much more stuff in the world.

48:12It's going to take you out of yourself on a desert island too. Yeah, can you imagine? I'll be like right wherever I need to be. Perfect choice. You can also have a luxury item. What's that going to be? I have a little confession to make on this one. So my darling friend, Christopher Aspinall, who is exceptionally excited for me to be on this show because he listens to every single episode. His luxury item was so good. I'm nicking it. His was slightly different, so I'm just building on it. His was a mattress. And what I really want is the mattress and clean sheets as like one like beautiful you know high thread count Egyptian cotton white pressed, don't give me any out the tumble dryer, I want them like sharp, do you know what I mean, like clarity is fresh, like pressed sheets, can I have like as many as I want?

49:03Yeah you can have as many as well So I just want like an infinite supply of clean sheets and a mattress of very high quality. It's yours what a fabulous luxury, well done do Thank you. And finally, which one of these eight discs would you save from the waves first if they began to be washed away? It's a really unfair, rude question. That's why we ask it last. I am going to go for Stand By Me. OK, that's interesting. So you're going for the song that's soothing that you said was like a lullaby. Yeah, I'm going to do that because that song, it's full of heart. And I think at the end of the day, you know, when you think about like, what do you always need?

49:40What do you always want? Would you come back to? That song, to me, is like very, very heartful. And so I'll take that one. Perfect choice. Emma Greed, thank you very much for learning us here. Your Desert Island Discs. Thank you. What a joy.

50:07Hello. It was a lovely chat to Emma and I hope she has a great night's sleep on our island in those freshly pressed sheets. There are more than 2 ,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to. We've cast away many other fashion leaders over the years, including Stella McCartney, Vivian Westwood and Paul Smith. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Discs website. The studio managers for today's programme were Steve Greenwood and Neva Masirian. The production coordinator was Susie Roilance and the editor was Mugabe Turia. The producers were Hannah Hufford and Christine Pavlovsky.

50:41Join me next time when I'll be casting away the neurologist, Professor Dame Pamela Shaw.

51:14This Cultural Life from BBC Radio 4. I will never go into anything so deep like that again. The world's leading artistic figures reveal their creative influences. Disobey, disagree, disavow. I'm John Wilson and my recent guests have included the sculptor Anish Kapoor, photographer Annie Leibovitz, the actor Kristen Scott-Thomas. It has made me good at telling stories about people who have a secret suffering. And former Children's Laureate Frank Cotterall Boyce. If art's got one function, it's to point to what's wonderful and say, look, this is your world, it's insane. Listen to This Cultural Life on BBC Sounds.