Emma Grede, 42, is a founding partner and chief product officer at Skims, a shapewear brand worth $4 billion. She also serves as the co-founder and CEO of apparel brand Good American, which recorded $200 million in sales in 2022 (and $1 million on its first day live on October 18, 2016, marking the biggest denim launch in history). She’s worth a reported $390 million.

She’s also a high school dropout raised by a single mother in East London who began working a paper route at 12 years old to earn extra money. By 16, she had left school and started working at a fashion production company. While there, Grede came up with the idea for her first business, a marketing and entertainment agency called Independent Talent Brand (ITB) that matched fashion designers with funding. She founded the company in 2008 at age 25 and grew the agency before selling it 10 years later to marketing firm Rogers & Cowen for an undisclosed sum.

Related: Good American CEO Emma Grede Talks Management, Navigating Outside Noise, and Why You Should Always Stick to Your Mission

Now, Grede is based in Los Angeles with her husband, Skims CEO Jens Grede, and their four children. She also co-founded the sports apparel brand Off Season and the chemical-free cleaning company, Safely. She appeared as a guest investor on Shark Tank in seasons 13 and 14.

And now she can add podcast host to her resume. The serial entrepreneur just launched a new podcast called Aspire, which aims to educate and inspire business leaders through in-depth conversations with leading executives and celebrities.

^{Emma Grede. Photo Credit: Jamie Girdler}

Grede sat down with Entrepreneur to talk about her new podcast, how she manages several businesses, and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

Why did you start your podcast, and how is it different from other business podcasts?
I left school when I was 16 years old. So, I don’t have a traditional trajectory. I’m trying to unpack as much as the success that I’ve had, the mistakes that I’ve had. I wanted to give something that I thought would have been useful to me when I started my businesses.

What kind of advice would have been useful?
To start, you have to love what you are doing. I say that because it’s tough to start something from scratch, and it’ll test every fiber of your being. So you have to really want to do it. It has to be more than just a single goal, like I need to make money, or I just want to leave the place where I work. It has to be something that fuels you.

What kind of mindset does it take to be successful in entrepreneurship? Is there a trait or skill that stands out?
I think you have to have unwavering self-belief. There’s a part of this that is really about a mindset that won’t take no for an answer and can see around and through problems and adversity. That works every time.

How did you decide on entrepreneurship?
It’s something I fell into. Like so many of us, I worked a corporate job for many years. I left that job because I didn’t think I was being remunerated well enough for what I did. So I fell into entrepreneurship. And that’s why I started my own thing.

If you could start a side hustle today, what would it be?
I would want to be a florist. That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do that I’ve never touched. I would love to have a job that is just about the beauty, and is artistically fulfilling. That would be my little dream side hustle. A flower shop somewhere in a lovely place.

What’s your leadership style?
At [Good American], there are over 150 people. I’m the chief product officer in another company [Skims] where there are probably 400 people. So, it’s a lot of people, but I tend to hire the best people and get out of their way. One of the things that I do well is hire. I’m particularly good at putting teams together.

What do you look for in new hires?
I hire for attitude over experience often. That’s not in all positions, but I think especially when you’re starting a company, having people who have the energy, who have the passion, you can’t put a price on that.

What keeps you motivated?
I honestly feel that I’ve created the life of my dreams. I’m grateful every day that I get to do what I do. I think that keeps me motivated, that I have made this life for myself, and it’s of my choosing.

What is it like working with your husband on the same C-suite leadership team? Do you keep a separation between the family and work dynamics?
I’ve worked with Jens for a very long time, and we had a solid professional relationship before we were a couple. He handles the marketing and day-to-day running of Skims while I focus on the product. So our roles are very defined, and we do different things. We have different skills, which makes us very compatible as business partners. We also have a lot of separation in our actual roles. But if I’m honest, we love what we do so much. So does business spill into home time, and do we talk about what we do all the time? Absolutely. Yes. There’s a part of that that’s inevitable.

Do you have a lot of help at home?
I have twin three-year-olds, and then I have an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old. At home, I don’t have four kids that I get to school myself in the morning. I have a lot of help around me, and I rely on all of that help to get through the day. I think it’s very important to be honest about that because I don’t want anyone to look at me and think, Oh, wow. She’s some kind of superwoman. It’s like, No, I’m not superwoman. I’m just a woman. I’m making choices every day and making lots of sacrifices every day.

This interview has been lightly edited and cut for clarity.

Related: Kristin Cavallari and Emma Grede Reveal How They Built Brands That Stand Out in a Saturated Market — and the Secret Isn’t Star Power

Frank Neri was shutting down his first restaurant, Pez, when he got the email.

It was a Monday when he announced the closure. Two days later, a message came in from the Michelin Guide asking for photos, chef details and a full description of the restaurant.

“We didn’t get a star,” Neri says. “But we made the list. And we had already closed.”

The irony wasn’t lost on him. After years of pouring his heart into Pez, a Baja-style seafood concept rooted in fine dining, the validation came just a few days too late.

“The media jumped on it,” he says. “The story became about how we closed right before the list came out.”

But the experience gave Neri clarity. He had chased perfection and ambition, and he learned just how fragile a great restaurant can be. That lesson stayed with him. So did the need to evolve.

“I used to think fine dining meant success,” he explains. “Now I know it’s about doing one thing really well, keeping the team small and staying focused.”

Related: What It’s Like Putting on a Restaurant Show for 55,000 People

Like many others in the hospitality world, Neri had to learn in public. He made tough decisions, weathered shutdowns and leaned on a WhatsApp group of local Miami restaurateurs to share strategies and vent frustrations during the pandemic.

The group, which he jokingly refers to as the Cuban Mafia, included some of the city’s most influential operators. “One day they’d say, ‘Tomorrow we’re talking to the mayor, we’re pushing for full capacity,'” Neri recalls. “And then it would actually happen.”

Those hard lessons reshaped his approach to the business. It became the beginning of El Primo Red Tacos.

Related: How a Spot on ‘The Montel Williams Show’ Sparked a Restaurant Power Brand for This Miami Chef

The birria taco boom

When the pandemic hit, Neri had a choice. Rather than double down on big dining rooms and complicated menus, he simplified. He took a slow-braised beef birria recipe, one he had been serving quietly for brunch, and turned it into the centerpiece of a stripped-down popup. Birria only. Takeout only. Twenty hours a week.

Within days, people were lining up around the block.

But the move wasn’t just reactive. The foundation had been laid years earlier, during a trip to Tijuana in 2012. Neri remembers the exact date, July 28, because it changed the way he thought about flavor.

“I had this tostada with yellowfin tuna and machaca,” he says. “I’d trained in France and Spain, but this was something else. A flavor explosion.”

It wasn’t about copying that dish; it was about chasing that feeling. The impact of bold, unexpected flavor combinations inspired Neri’s approach to tacos. He wanted to create something equally memorable, but rooted in his own voice and vision.

Years later, when nobody in Miami was doing tacos the way he remembered, Neri gave the city six months to get it right. When no one did, he launched his own concept: El Primo Red Tacos.

Related: A Loyal Customer Asked Him to Cater One Event. Now, He Runs More Than 1,000 a Year.

Now located in downtown Miami, El Primo Red Tacos keeps the menu tight and the focus singular. The specialty is birria, and everything revolves around doing it right. “We specialize. That’s what we believe in,” he says. “Specialize, perfect it and that’s it.”

Even the recipes are personal. Neri’s mother-in-law helped shape the original birria blend, which he fine-tuned with care.

Neri offers his advice with the same clarity that came from hard-won experience. Take small steps. Avoid bloated menus. Focus on what you care about most. That mindset didn’t just help him rebound; it gave him a new blueprint for growth.

Failure didn’t end his career. It set the stage for something more focused, more intentional, and more successful. “We’re proud of our food,” Neri says. “Everybody does birria now, but not everybody does it well. Nobody does it like we do.”

Related: This ‘Chopped’ Champ Beat Cancer 6 Times, Lost Nearly 200 Pounds and Found Power in Presence

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In 2022, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called cryptocurrency “decentralized Ponzi schemes” at a U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing. “I’m a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like Bitcoin,” he said at the time.

But on Monday at JPMorgan’s annual investor day, Dimon said that JPMorgan Chase, the U.S.’s largest bank, will allow its clients to buy Bitcoin, per CNBC.

Related: JPMorgan Chase Says AI Could Cut Headcount By 10% in Some Divisions: ‘We Will Deliver More’

“We are going to allow you to buy it,” Dimon said. “We’re not going to custody it. We’re going to put it in statements for clients.”

^{JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon delivers a speech during the Global Markets Conference, ahead of the Choose France summit, in Paris, on May 15, 2025. MICHEL EULER/POOL/AFP | Getty}

Rival Morgan Stanley has allowed clients to buy bitcoin ETFs since August 2024.

Dimon has long cited the risks of bitcoin, including money laundering. At Davos last year, he called it a “pet rock” that “does nothing.”

Related: ‘This Has to Stop’: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Outlines How to Run a Successful Meeting

But that doesn’t mean he is going to hold other people back from making their own financial choices.

“I don’t think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke,” Dimon said. “I defend your right to buy bitcoin.”