The Kardashian Whisperer Who Says Three Hours With Her Kids Is Enough

As a founding partner and chief product officer of Kim Kardashian's Skims and co-founder and CEO of Khloé Kardashian's Good American, Grede sports power suits on podcasts and crisscrosses the globe for business engagements. But don't mistake the perfect blowout and dewy skin for softness. The 43-year-old British entrepreneur is coming out with a book, Start With Yourself, that she says will "dismantle the lies that women have been sold" about work-life balance and ambition. She criticizes helicopter parenting, decries remote work and tells women they should be willing to "piss people off" in order to be good leaders. The book makes the case for putting yourself first in work, life and child-rearing. It's Lean In for the post-girlboss era. "You're going to have discomfort if you live up to your ambition," Grede says. It starts with self-awareness. "If you want to get paid what you deserve or make a lot of money, you've got to admit that to yourself." Grede grew up in East London in the '80s. The eldest daughter of a single mother, she helped raise her three younger sisters and dropped out of high school to pursue an early career in fashion. Her drive for success and wealth comes from "wanting to get away from that life and what I saw around me," she says. "I wanted a different existence. I wanted to be in charge of my happiness." She worked her way up in the celebrity and marketing world, which is where she met Jens Grede, her husband and business partner, as well as Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner. She eventually founded her own agency, ITB Worldwide, which she sold in 2018. In 2025, Forbes ranked Grede as the 88th richest self-made woman in America. Some of Grede's advice cuts against popular dictums from the 2010s. She recommends women skip those glamorous dinners some female founders splash all over Instagram, calling them "mostly about ego-gratification." Grede also recommends abandoning "women-helping-women culture," which she describes as hiding "our wants under the veil of friendship." Instead, she says, women could stand to be a lot more transactional. "I don't want to be doing things for free that I don't get paid for," she says. "I'm not saying don't do favors. But you can say, 'This is something I need to charge for, that I need to be rewarded for.' " A pivotal experience for Grede was launching the Good American denim label in 2016 and ordering too little inventory because she underestimated demand. Investors questioned her suitability for the role, she says, but she feels that good leaders push through failures. Women have a tendency to talk themselves "out of the big jobs," and she didn't want that to happen to her. "That little flicker -- it can plant itself in you and blossom into self-doubt, impostor syndrome," she says. "You have to stamp it out." Just as Grede believes that women should be honest about wealth aspirations, she also thinks "we need more people to come out and be honest" about raising children. As a mother of four, Grede is frank that she enjoys working and isn't focused solely on her kids. "Women are drained and exhausted," she says. "And so to put upon yourself that every waking minute is oriented around your kids is not a way to live." Grede calls herself a "max three-hour mum." After being with her kids from 9 to noon on weekends, "I am done with these four," she says, noting she's then off to activities that "fill my cup." Some women, she added, might be "two-hour mums." She doesn't read school emails or engage in activities she thinks are "overparenting." "Cutting sandwiches into star shapes? That was never it for me." She acknowledges this is made possible by her family's team of nannies and cleaners, plus a chef and chief of staff. Instead, Grede compares time spent with her children to limited-edition fashion collabs, noting she likes to create "high-impact, core memories" through big moments like fishing trips or New York getaways. She says she built this life by establishing a mandate for herself -- she wanted to have a family and also have a big career, and she was able to fulfill both these dreams by keeping a road map of her goals, and by being comfortable with trade-offs. Grede suggests women put their dreams and financial goals down on paper, and check in on them annually. They should also identify what they are and aren't willing to sacrifice, she adds. "I hold a vision for myself," she says. "And I'm uncompromising."