Serial entrepreneur Emma Grede wants women to talk about money

When we connect, it is early afternoon in South Africa, and British businesswoman, entrepreneur, author and podcaster Emma Grede is mid-multitask: she is climbing into her car, juggling a box with fish and chips in one hand and a borrowed phone in the other. She seems unfazed, though, treating this on-the-road chaos like a well-orchestrated balancing act, immediately bringing an easy presence to the call. 

Grede feels like a tornado, albeit gentle and colourful (she is wearing a mustard-yellow sleeveless dress); whether hosting a podcast, speaking on stage or squeezed into a quick interview, she speaks with the energy of a whirlwind: fast, funny and disarmingly direct. She calls you “love”, gives hugs, grabs a bite mid-sentence, and draws you into her orbit. 

It is with the same energy, along with what she acknowledges as a few “trade-offs” – or, as she puts it, “unavoidable choices” – that Grede has built her success “pedal to the metal”. 

Born in London, she worked multiple jobs, raised her hand for every task, learned by watching others (even mimicking her first boss’s demeanour) and by 30, she had launched a talent management and entertainment marketing agency. Today, she is a founding partner of the clothing brand Skims, co-founder and CEO of the women’s fashion and denim brand Good American, co-founder of the sports apparel brand Off Season and on the Obama Foundation’s board of directors. She is also the host of Aspire with Emma Grede, a “masterclass in ambition, heart, and high performance” (as a listener, this writer concurs), and the author of the book Start With Yourself, the reason we are speaking today.     

Her book shares the same rapid-fire energy as her presence; it is full of life and practical advice and feels surprisingly raw, as if scrubbing away the swear words (her favourites, she admits) or repetitions would somehow have altered who she is. In fact, in the book she explains that she’s not about to hire someone to edit her emails before sending them. That’s not what matters to her, because she has many other things to focus on, starting with women and money. 

She dedicated an entire chapter to the subject and made a podcast episode titled You’re Allowed to Want to Be Rich. When asked why women are still conditioned to avoid discussing money out of fear that “it sounds b**chy”, she doesn’t mince her words. 

“It does sound b**chy,” she says. “But even the idea that we think it sounds b**chy is part of the problem because nobody wants to be a b**ch. Nobody wants to be the person that’s asking for more all the time. Nobody wants to stick their neck out. And yet, what is the alternative? To be underpaid. I’d rather be an overpaid b**ch, you know…”

‘It’s about choices’

For Grede, overcoming that hesitation requires unlearning the need for approval.  

“We have to resist the urge to want to be liked, and resist the urge to be in comfort in the same way that you have to resist the urge to think that you should be happy all the time. It’s about choices. It’s about freedom. And you can’t outsource that to anybody else.”

She points out how small, seemingly innocent compromises might compound into massive losses over a career, like turning down one £5,000 (about R108,000) extra paycheck thinking it won’t matter in the long run. 

“We have to think more long-term and think about the impact of our decisions and also what’s the impact for the person coming after you, because this isn’t a singular conversation. It’s much more of a collective conversation. It’s a generational conversation. So what? Be the difficult woman. Put your neck out.”

Financial literacy, she believes, isn’t an option; it’s the road to autonomy.  

“Money is one of those things [that] affects all of our lives. It affects our ability to make choices and do what we want. And that is so much power. And for us to take responsibility for ourselves, you have to take responsibility for your financial wellness. It’s not a ‘nice to have’. It’s just a must-have.” 

Grede is part of a growing movement: across digital spaces and boardroom tables, female entrepreneurs, finance influencers and creators are urging women to get smarter about money, from daily budgeting to long-term investing, as the single fastest path to closing the wealth gap. It’s a message that resonates at the highest levels. In March, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde launched the EuroSteps Walking challenge combining step-counting with bite-sized financial lessons in a pan-European effort to close the wealth gender gap. 

But, for Grede, this conversation isn’t simply about women’s “empowerment” as using that word implies women lacked power in the first place. 

“One of the things that I find so interesting is that as women, we can often feel like we’re in competition with one another,” she says. “And I think that’s just laughable. We’re not in competition with one another. We’re in competition with the men. And by the way? They killed us. They ate our lunch… There’s no point in worrying about what the woman next to you is being paid because the guy next to her is being paid more than both of you. It’s a fruitless task.”

Deeds, not words

She doesn’t want easy slogans either. “When we talk about women’s empowerment, I think that what happened is we got a little generalistic about the whole subject. It’s an easy thing to say. It’s a hard thing to do”, she says. “What are you actually doing? I want to remove the language and replace it with some action because that’s all that matters. What is the direction that we’re moving in? And are we doing it quickly enough?”

When confronted with pushback that structural change is hard, she explains:

“Yeah, it’s hard. Because all things that are great are hard. All forms of progress are really, really difficult. But who’s going to take the fight? Are we going to wait for a bunch of guys to do it for us? It’s not going to happen. So, yes, we have to do hard things. We have to put our necks out, and we have to dare to be called out for it.”

She continues: “Women collectively have done an amazing job in moving things forward. And we just have to understand that we’re not done. It’s not finished. And what does it matter what anybody thinks of you? We have to resist our urge to be in constant people-pleasing mode and for everybody to think good about us. What does it mean to be a good woman anyway? I don’t know. I don’t understand.”

Grede’s thirst to shape and change things is infectious for many. A lifelong learner, she seems determined to figure things out, collect good advice and share it, find mentors and solutions.  

“I want to know: How does this work? Where does this come from? Why do you speak like that? What did your mother teach you?”, she says. 

“Whenever I’m at a roadblock, whenever I’ve felt like this is not something I can handle, I’ve gone out and tried to find who can help me. And sometimes that’s been therapy… Sometimes it’s something more intense like the Hoffman [Process]. [It] comes from being unbelievably curious about what else I have”. 

Rather than letting emotions or knee-jerk reactions dictate her decisions, she tries to dig deeper for answers. “Anger, judgement, fear… That might be the default emotion, but it isn’t the only thing that’s there.”

A great read

Start With Yourself is part memoir (sharing some surprising truths) and part guide, a fitting mix for someone who has been running multiple businesses at the same time. Reading it feels like a good therapy session, where you’re prompted to look at your struggles from a different angle, until something clicks and changes. Grede calls this replacing “old thoughts” (outdated patterns carved into our collective mindset by patriarchal norms and stubborn stereotypes) with new ones. 

It’s a great read, the kind that feels like sitting down with an old friend, not the type of friend who is going to offer empty comfort, but the one who pours you a glass of Champagne, gives you a tight hug after a fall and helps you stand back up on your own two feet before sending you on your way. 

As she approaches her mid-forties, Grede isn’t slowing down. 

“Anything before the age of 40 is just practice. Pure and simple,” says Grede. “You’re trying to figure out, who am I? What am I? Am I actually good at anything? Who are my people? It’s just a big practice run. And then you get to 40, and hopefully you figured some stuff out. Hopefully, you are in a place where you get to say, ‘Well, here’s where I want to put my energy.’ 

“The benefit of experience and knowing who you are, learning more about yourself, means that your 40s, your 50s, your 60s really is the prime of your life. And we don’t think about it traditionally that way because we’re so outwardly focused that we think, ‘Oh my god, like everything is fading on the outside.’ The truth is, on the inside everything is booming. Everything is blossoming. You are just starting to understand, ‘Oh, how amazing am I!’ And so I think that we’ve got to kind of reinterpret what those decades mean to us”. 

And with that, Emma Grede grabs one last chip and heads towards her next interview. DM

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Start With Yourself is published by Simon & Schuster and retails for R465.