Emma Grede says her $5 billion Skims empire started with a cold call to Kris Jenner: ‘The difference between me and someone else is, I made it happen’

You’ve probably heard of British entrepreneur Emma Grede because of Skims, the $5 billion shapewear company she runs with Kim Kardashian. She’s also invested in other brands with the family, such as cleaning products company Safely and Kylie Jenner’s clothing line, Khy. And the growing empire can all be traced back to one phone call she made to Kris Jenner that changed everything.

It was 2015, and Grede had built her own entertainment and talent agency, Independent Talent Brand, which saw her jetting between London and L.A. “I knew every manager, agent, publicist, lawyer in Hollywood, that was my job,” Grede recalls in an exclusive interview with Fortune. 

It put her in a perfect position to pitch her new idea: a radically inclusive denim brand tailored for women who’d been overlooked by mainstream fashion. In her mind, she’d already picked the perfect partner for the brand: Khloé Kardashian, who “embodied that idea right from the beginning.” The star had often been honest about her experience as the curvy sister. 

But here’s the catch: Grede hadn’t run a fashion business before, and the two had never worked together. Instead of waiting for an introduction, she boldly called the family matriarch and “momager,” Jenner herself. 

“I had an idea, and I formed the partnership in my mind,” the now 43-year-old self-made millionaire says. “The difference between me and someone else is that I made the phone call, I took the meeting, ...