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Emma Grede may be best known for being a founding partner for some of the Kardashian family\u2019s biggest brands, including Skims and Good American, but she wants to make one thing clear: She\u2019s more than a \u201ccelebrity CEO.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon’t call me a celebrity CEO,\u201d Grede said on April 15 at Adweek\u2019s Social Media Week in New York City. \u201cI’m not a celebrity CEO. I’m a CEO that’s done so well that you know my name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grede, a serial entrepreneur and investor who is worth an estimated $405 million, according to Forbes<\/em>, is no stranger to hard work. She got her first job at 12 and has, as she puts it, \u201cdone every single job all the way up,\u201d from selling Fendi bags that \u201cfell off the back of the truck\u201d to packing boxes as an intern and eventually serving as a senior executive of her own marketing agency ITB Worldwide. That experience, she said, has shaped how she leads and how she thinks about the value of her team\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need everybody along the way, and I think that that understanding, that empathy, makes me a good leader,\u201d Grede said. \u201cMy team knows that I know what it takes, I know what they’re doing, and I have an appreciation for what everyone brings to the organization.\u201d <\/p>\n Grede joined Social Media Week to preview her new book, Start with Yourself: A New Vision for Work and Life<\/em>, which was released earlier this month. One of her aims, she said, is to be honest about what she doesn\u2019t do\u2014and to push back on what she calls the \u201cimpossible standards\u201d women are held to.<\/p>\n Rather than add to the \u201cI do it all\u201d rhetoric, Grede talks candidly about trade-offs. She doesn\u2019t take her kids to school every morning or see her friends as often as she\u2019d like, and she wants readers to understand that her version of success comes with real sacrifices.<\/p>\n Those trade-offs extend to how she works, too. For Grede, one of the few non-negotiables is showing up in person.<\/p>\n Despite her growing profile, Grede insists her day-to-day life still revolves around going into the office.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason I can do what I do is because I go to work,\u201d Grede said. \u201cIt’s because I have an understanding of what it means to get up and go into a place every day and do your best.\u201d <\/p>\n While she understands the importance of flexibility, Grede argues that a \u201cgreat career\u201d requires both visibility and proximity\u2014and that the only way to get more out of your career is to be present and available.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want an extraordinary career, then an extraordinary effort has to go into that, and that’s usually not done on the other end of a phone call,\u201d Grede said.<\/p>\n She added this mindset extends beyond work. Living exclusively in a \u201cvirtual world,\u201d she said, comes with risks of missing out on the moments that \u201cmake life incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI met my husband at work. I met my best friends at work,\u201d Grede said. \u201cThe point of life is to be in community with people. And I have had such a rich and incredible career, and it’s not because of the big wins and the valuations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s like all the people,\u201d she continued.. \u201cIt’s all the amazing conversations that I’ve had, all the gossipy moments. And so when you extrapolate yourself from that, you actually do yourself a disservice.\u201d <\/p>\n Grede believes young people early in their careers are sometimes \u201csocially conditioned\u201d to avoid behaviors that create \u201cwealth, success, and opportunities\u201d in leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that there are systems in place that are there to keep us small, that are there to keep us quiet, but you can change your thinking, and that’s what \u2018start with yourself\u2019 means,\u201d Grede said.<\/p>\n But for Grede, shifting your mindset is only the first step. The real work comes from taking action\u2014even before you feel ready. Starting before she was ready, she said, was the \u201csingle biggest decision\u201d she\u2019s ever made.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s not about those that make the best decisions. It’s people that make the most decisions,\u201d Grede said. \u201cI really believe in this constant way of always being in motion. I think that’s how I got resilient. That’s how I built confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/p>\n #Emma #Grede #helped #billion #Skims #empire #rejects #celebrity #CEO #label #CEO #whos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Grede may be best known for being a founding partner for some of the Kardashian family\u2019s biggest brands, including Skims and Good American, but she wants to make one… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1056,897,369,1053,1058,1054,1055,1060,1059,1057,1061],"class_list":["post-797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-billion","tag-celebrity","tag-ceo","tag-emma","tag-empire","tag-grede","tag-helped","tag-label","tag-rejects","tag-skims","tag-whos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gw.adampg777.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Emma Grede on the \u2018impossible standards\u2019 for women and work-life balance<\/h2>\n
Emma Grede\u2019s advice for Gen Z workers<\/h2>\n