Kardashian ally Emma Grede on being an ambitious woman and billions

Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of inclusive fashion brand Good American alongside Khloé Kardashian, and founding partner of Skims with Kim Kardashian, has had a boardroom seat to the billion-dollar impact social influence can have on business. But she says it takes a lot more than influence to turn ambition and ideas into lasting success, and she has plenty of advice from her path to self-made millionaire to offer other women.

In Grede’s new book “Start With Yourself“, which came out Tuesday, she writes that women are often held back by how they are conditioned to think about money, leadership, and the permission to pursue their ambitions.

“There’s a lot of social conditioning that happens to us … ‘she’s a good girl,’ and it teaches you to be small and be quiet and to be a pleaser,” Grede told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin during the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast, which was also released Tuesday.

That conditioning early in life can leave a long and lasting negative impact on women, Grede says. “If you sit in fear about sticking out or doing something wrong, it’s going to be really hard for you to start something new because you’re so fearful. And if you’re a people pleaser, you’re probably not going to say what you really mean. … And if your ambition to make a lot of money only lives inside of you, and you haven’t really vocalized it, then why should anybody pay you more?”

Grede was named to the 2025 CNBC Changemakers list.

Here are a few more key takeaways from her CNBC podcast appearance where she discussed many of the themes in her new book.

Being honest with yourself may need to be the first step in ambition.

Among Grede’s primary advice to women is take a hard look at what may be holding them back. “Why don’t we just get honest about some of this stuff and recognize what in our emotional lives is holding us back? Because once you understand it, you can start to correct it,” she said. 

And that will help to have the confidence to pursue ambitions.

“I always talk about this idea of ambition being a little bit uncomfortable, and you need to be able to learn to lean into that discomfort,” said Grede, who grew up in East London and was raised by a single mom with limited financial resources.

Then ambition has to be coupled with vision and a plan, and a lot of hard work. “Ambition needs to find you working,” Grede said.

Ideas are never enough.

Her long-running, successful partnerships with the Kardashian family are built on more than just celebrity endorsements. “You have to be able to have an intrinsic understanding of what your partnership brings and what it does together,” Grede said. “You have to be able to trust each other.”

The Kardashians did bring cultural reach, fame, and confidence, and Grede says she brought operational experience from having already run a successful business. And both backgrounds have been critical to building structures that helped Skims and Good American grow in the areas of shapewear…