How Can More Women Become Business Leaders? (Your Radical Questions with Emma Grede)

0:00Amol Rajan:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Amol Rajan:center boom has finally met its match, public backlash. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:42Amol Rajan:Hello team, just before we get going with this question and answer episode with the mighty Emma Greed, I wanted to ask for your questions for me to ask one of our next radical guests. He is a giant of modern technology and business. It's Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, which is the world's largest professional networking platform, maybe you're on it. And he is arguing in favor of a rapid adoption of AI in the workplace all around the world. He sees AI as another machine, which makes some human jobs obsolete. But he argues humanity will be able to adapt. There's probably no one who's thought more and be more immersed in the implications of AI for jobs, for the workforce, than Reid Hoffman, the founder or co-founder of LinkedIn.

1:25Amol Rajan:And he's a pretty political person, a vocal critic of Donald Trump. He's reportedly donated hundreds of millions of dollars to politics over the last few years, much of it going to Democrat and liberal causes. I think you're going to really enjoy this episode. Please do get in touch and tell me what you want me to ask Reid Hoffman. I'll pursue answers on your behalf. The number, as you know by now, is 0330 123 9480. 0330 123 9480. And you can email us on radical at bbc.co.uk. Right, on to Emma Greed.

2:05Amol Rajan:Hello and welcome to Your Radical Questions. This is where I put your questions to one of our magnificent radical guests. It's your chance to engage very, very directly and really connect with the super smart, interesting, powerful, influential people that we have on this podcast and ask them about their radical ideas for the future. Well, I hope you heard last Thursday's episode because it was a corker with Emma Greed, who is still with me. She's a serial entrepreneur, investor, one of America's most successful self-made businesswomen. She is the CEO and co-founder of the denim company, Good American, which she started with Khloe Kardashian.

2:44Amol Rajan:And she's the founding partner of Skims, which she founded alongside her husband, Jens, and Kim Kardashian. from her humble beginnings, ordinary beginnings in East London in a place called Plasto, where she was born in the 1980s, to a massive transatlantic business empire, huge social media influence and connection to many, many powerful people through various boards and charitable endeavours, as well as her business. Emma, we've had absolutely loads of questions. I put this out on Instagram. I had a deluge, a deluge from people. I love a deluge. They all look up to you. Our first question is from Travis, who sent us this voice note.

3:22Amol Rajan:Here's Travis. Afternoon, Emma. My name is Travis. I greatly admire the work you're doing on Aspire, your podcast, and I'm excited to hear your radical takes with Amel today as well. I'm messaging on behalf of young people in Britain. I am about to graduate from university with a first class degree and I'm wondering what advice you would give to young people like me who are staring into a very bleak looking corporate world and limited graduate job market at the minute. Myself, I feel I've upskilled at university, I've learnt to be critical of the world in which I'm about to enter and I am willing to grow most importantly but everywhere I look and all the jobs I've applied to I'm affronted by a lack of opportunity and by doors that no matter how hard I'm kicking them just will not open what advice would you give to people like me do I start with my own company do I look to do something creative with my English degree or do I just stay persistent and hope that things change um hope you can provide some clarity on the situation and yeah thank you for your feedback.

4:30Amol Rajan:Travis, thank you so much for that question. Just before I let Emma answer, I just want to say a couple of things. One is we had many questions on that sort of theme, including one from Max. Max, thank you as well, who asked Emma something very similar. I would just really encourage people to go back and listen to last Thursday's podcast, in which Emma and I talk a lot about how she's tried to take advantage of some of the opportunities in front of her and how she broke down lots of barriers and doors. But it is worth saying, just as a matter of fact, there is a very particular thing going on with the graduate jobs market in this country at the moment jobs do seem harder to get hold of I've through work I've done in the world of charity and elsewhere know huge numbers of people who've applied to hundreds of jobs so I think Travis and Max and others speak for many many people his question is what advice would you give to people like him yeah I mean first of all it's um it's so it's so difficult where we are right now I think there has to just be an acknowledgement of that and doing anything aside from acknowledging that would just be irresponsible of me because I have people in my own family that constantly reach out to me and say, oh my goodness, you know, I've been applying for so many jobs and I can't get anything.

5:37And I think the interesting thing is that, you know, when I grew up, the idea of like going to university was like a guarantee. And if you dropped out like I did, like then you would be on a tough path. I think the answer to Travis's question is that you have to do everything. You know, he kind of broke down saying, do I start something to myself? Do I keep kicking the door down? Do I go and do something creative? The answer to the question is you have to do it all because what is the option? You know, Winston Churchill had this amazing quote and I'm going to totally mess it up, but it was like, you know, I see no option but to be an optimist.

6:11What other choice do you have? And when you don't have a choice, the choice is that it's made for you. So you have to do all of the things. You have to take whatever is at your disposal and just do all of the things. And what I know is that when things seem bleak and when things seem without opportunity, there's always like something that kind of suddenly opens up. But it really is also so much about like, what are you putting out? What is the attitude? What is the energy? What is the ego level? What are you willing to do? And I do remember being in a lot of situations myself where I was thinking, I am overqualified for the situation that I'm in.

6:53Do it anyway. Do it anyway, because what is your choice? And come at it with an attitude and a kind of ego level that is appropriate, meaning do whatever it takes.

7:03Amol Rajan:That's what Jensen Huang, who's the boss of NVIDIA, the world's richest company by market capitalization at the moment, says there is no job in his company he wouldn't do himself. I mean, he works about as hard as you do. He's one of the hardest workers in the planet. He says every single job at NVIDIA, which, as I say, is the wealthiest company in the world by market cap, he would do. By the way, Travis, massive, massive congratulations. You're about to graduate with a first class degree. That is an amazing achievement. And when you went out to university, if someone said you're going to leave with a first, a lot of people would have said that sounds pretty cool.

7:34Amol Rajan:Thank you so much for that. The next question is from Alison. Alison says, why do you think more women are not leading businesses? Is it capability or self-belief? Neither. It's social conditioning. And I think that, you know, my book is called Start With Yourself. And that's for a reason. So we know there are a myriad of reasons that women don't get the same opportunities and aren't afforded the same opportunities. We have to make sure that we ourselves are not adding on to those reasons with our behavior, with the way that we let our fear or our guilt or our anxiety keep us out of opportunities.

8:08So I wrote about this a lot in the book. You should not be making your decisions based on your emotions. And that is something that I see over and over and over again. And I say that because I hire hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women in my companies and I see the same behaviors repeat themselves. And so I think that rather than focus on what's happening on the outside and we know all of those things exist, everything that keeps women out of opportunities, we have to make sure that we are not one of those things.

8:38Amol Rajan:What do you look for in a hire? You know, for me, like my key trait, first of all, I hire for attitude over experience all day long because that is what is actually going to propel someone and make them really, really successful. But the other thing is an element of flexibility. If you are, and you know, for me, I only see the most senior hires in the company. So it's often people in their 40s and their 50s, even their 60s. If you have worked at one of my biggest competitors and you know exactly how to do the role that I'm hiring you for, but you don't come with an element of flexibility in the way that you think, you think you know it all because you've done it all.

9:12That's a non-starter for me because in this world, with the rapid change that we're seeing, you have to have flexibility of thought to understand there might be another better way to do things so that I'm always looking for people that are really really willing to try things differently and learn from those experiences and it's worth saying Alison that the book which

9:32Amol Rajan:Emma's written called start with yourself a new vision for work and life does reflect at length on motherhood specifically and the fact that the motherhood penalty is real but I mean what's your advice to people like Alison who are concerned that because of motherhood and the fact of the motherhood penalty they're going to take five six however many years out of their career at the worst possible time and in a sense there's not much you can do about that right well there is something that you can do about it because you can choose what type of mother you want to be i think the idea of parenting has gone absolutely crazy right now you don't have to be the person that governs every decision in your kid's life everything they eat every single thing that they do in every moment it's like the expectations on motherhood have gone completely crazy and you have to decide what is right for your family, what do you need to be there for?

10:21But don't imagine that you should be ushering your kids through every part of their life and that 100 % of your energy needs to be put into your kids. Really? It doesn't. Absolutely.

10:31Amol Rajan:I've been thinking, I've been saying, do you want green pasta? Do you want red pasta? I'm like pasta, you don't even get a choice in my house. Do you know, I need to bring that back. No choice, no. I want spaghetti bolognese. No, no. It's Friday, you're having fish and chips. Shut up, you're having fish and chips. Stop it. It's Friday, yeah. Yes, No, no. No choice. Take choice away from them. Alison, thank you very, very much indeed. Julia, how has being dyslexic helped or hindered your entrepreneurial spirit? Fascinating. I love that question because I think it has been absolutely fundamental to my success.

11:03So the first thing to say is that I was not diagnosed until I was in my early 20s. So I had my school career, my limited school career, without being diagnosed. So no help for me whatsoever. whatsoever um what that enabled was me to like really see through problems I have a very straightforward way of thinking and also like I really know that everything that was tough for me like math was really really difficult for me there's no way of avoiding math and finances when you're in business and so I simplify problems just by the nature because I didn't know how to work things out and so when I look at like that level of dyslexic thinking that's enabled me to do things differently.

11:43It's just like beyond any superpower. It's just like probably the greatest skill that I have.

11:50Amol Rajan:That's amazing. And I actually think that as a culture, a lot of people could take some pride in the fact that even 25, 30 years ago, dyslexia was much less understood. Yes. And it was much less diagnosed. And, you know, I mean, go back a bit further. Have you spent much time with Richard Branson and talked to him? No, I haven't. And it's so funny that you say that somebody else said it to me this week but do you know that dyslexic thinking is now a skill on LinkedIn it's actually attributed as a skill is that right yes it is what's your advice to a young dyslexic person then listening to you now you know what it is is a little bit like it would be to anyone you have to find the things that you're good at because what happened to me is that I got very distracted by the things that I was not good at and I spent too much time working on those it's like double down on the skills it's a little bit like focus it's like do what you can with what you have and be really excellent at those things.

12:42Don't worry about the things that you're finding really, really hard.

12:46Amol Rajan:Julia, that's a fantastic question and a very full answer. Thank you so much. This is a question from Maya. Maya says, Emma, what motivates you to do what you do with such a busy life? It's a bit Freudian, a bit psychological. We could go pretty deep with this. We could go back to Plasto 1987, you know. You know, it's just I'm wired that way. Like I'm hardwired to be busy, to be thinking. I don't know any other way. You know, I have built the life that I always dreamed of. And I don't even know how to answer that question. Like I don't know any other way to be. Do you ever take a moment just to sort of, I mean, have you been back to Plasto recently?

13:28Oh my goodness. I was there two days ago.

13:30Amol Rajan:What was that like? Back to your old house? I went back to the old street where I lived and back to my old school. I'm helping my school out with this like beautiful project right now because of course in Plasto so many of the kids are have to be in an after-school program so they're literally there until six and six thirty so we're building like this forest school for them so there was some land that they needed purchased it was the old caretaker's house and that land so I helped them out with it um but it's just like amazing to see because to me you know the the thing is like you can't be what you don't see and so you think for these kids are kind of like you know in their school all day the idea that at 3 30 you could get out and be digging in some mud and learning about plants and seeds and nature like that's like that can be a game changer for some kid who doesn't have a garden who doesn't know like you know that side of them yet and so to me i was like what that's magical it's like a magical project your forest school was kind of 90s uk fashion culture wasn't it oh yes hundred it was the magazines it was the it was the you know pocket money that I had that allowed me the magazine.

14:33It was always Vogue, always Elle, always Marie Claire. And I had a paper route. So all the money that they would give me, I'd give straight back to them. It was like, you know, I've always been a great consumer.

14:43Amol Rajan:Okay. Maya, thank you very much indeed. I'm actually going to do this question from Angela because I think it's incredibly important. And look, we've had a lot of questions on this theme. We kind of touched on it already, but whatever. Angela says, how do you find the time to stay present with your kids as a fellow working mum, i.e. fellow to Angela? I am extremely boundaried. And by that, I mean, I have like some sort of hard and fast rules I don't break. So I leave the office every day at five. Like, I don't care what's happening. Like, people are known to like literally walk to the elevator with me and then take the elevator down to the car park because I don't sacrifice what I want for other people.

15:22Like I am the least people pleasery person on the planet because you can't be a people pleaser and a leader. So the things that are important to me to get my kids up in the morning and then to have that little moment of sort of like bath and bedtime. Like I love those times when I'm at home and when I can do it. And so for me, there are just a few hard and fast rules. I then I don't take my phone out of my bag until the kids are in bed. So you can imagine for me who is constantly on the email and on the phone. It's like I have a back line, like a house phone, old school actual phone with a cord.

15:54And if, you know, it's like really going down, then I can be reached. But other than that, I am out between the hours of 5.30 and 7.30. You can't reach me. Why do you say you can't be a people pleaser and a leader? Because you have to please yourself. If you're walking around constantly concerned with what everybody else thinks and, you know, living somebody else's agenda, you'll never get round to what's important to you. So if you've got goals, you need to focus on those things. You can't be worried about what everybody else thinks. You can't be taking in and absorbing everybody else's feelings, and you can't be using your time to somebody else's direction.

16:30It's like you've got to get focused.

16:32Amol Rajan:So there's a chapter in the book on the old thoughts that we have about leadership. What do we get wrong about leadership, and what kind of leader are you? Well, here's the thing. I think I'm firm but fair. I have the super, super high expectations, which we already discussed. But the other thing is that I am not of the mindset that my team need to feel like my family. This is a business at the end of the day. I have an enterprise mentality. That means that if you are not working towards the goal and the things and what we're doing, then you might need to leave. But I can't be worried about everybody and everybody's feelings.

17:06And again, that's kind of difficult for some people to hear from a woman and from a mother of four because you expect ultimate, like, you know, 100 % empathy from me. But again, two things can be true at once. I have an enterprise mentality. I have to do what's right for the company. And by the same token, I care deeply about people because I think to be a great leader, you've got to take care of the people in your charge, but not at the detriment of the business.

17:28Amol Rajan:The business comes first. Business comes first. Comes first. Well, family comes first. Oh, you're not in the business. Well, you know, but they're not my family. My family comes first, but not the people that I work with. What did you say a minute ago? If business doesn't come first and you're not in the business? If what you're doing isn't right for the business, then you have to exit the business. It's just that simple. I can't hold on to people out of loyalty, out of a great relationship. And actually what you realise is that you might have people in your company that you kind of start with.

18:01And there's a special thing in kind of startup land when it's like the kind of four or five of you and you built something and everybody slogged and you did late nights and you know, all the things. You do grow a close bond.

18:12Amol Rajan:You write about that in the book. You say you love the early days. I love the early days. I love it when you know everybody's name. I love it when you know you're unpacking boxes. That's just who I am. But at the end of the day, the people that get you started are not always the people that you can grow with. And then you have to switch people out. And that's what it is. And that's what it means to have an enterprise mentality. That doesn't mean you have to be brutal. That doesn't mean that you have to be unkind or unfair, but it does mean that you've got to put what you're doing first. And then you have to make sure that you're exiting people and moving people along in your business in a way that's commensurate with what they've given you.

18:48But it doesn't mean that you hold on to dead weight. Absolutely not.

18:52Amol Rajan:Angela, thank you so much for that question and everyone who sent in a similar question. The final one for me in the two minutes we've got is what makes an effective entrepreneur? You know, I think that a level of unrelenting focus is really what you need. You know, you need a great idea, you need a great product, and then you need to be like nuts about it. You know, there is no replacing that kind of passion and obsession and downright like single-mindedness that comes from somebody who really, really believes in what they're doing. Like you have to be a little bit nuts. And if you believe it, others will as well.

19:30Amol Rajan:Yeah, they will. Thank you all so much for your questions. Thank you for answering them. Emma, I will be back with another episode of Radical on Thursday. We'll speak to you soon. Thank you so much for your time. What a joy. Thank you.

19:51Amol Rajan:Hey there, this is Thomas Jermaine, co-host of The Interface, the show that decodes how technology is rewiring your week and your world. On this week's episode, Apple's CEO is resigning, and we'll look at what that means for the future of smartphones. We'll talk about whether your latest favorite band is actually a secret marketing ploy and how the AI data center boom has finally met its match, public backlash. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You