Skims Cofounder Emma Grede: A Good Boss Isn't Your Friend

Skims cofounder Emma Grede, who built a $5 billion shapewear and apparel company with Kim Kardashian and Swedish entrepreneur Jens Grede, told the Boardroom podcast this week that executives should stop trying to be friends with their workers. "It is not my job to be your friend," Grede said. "It is not my job to treat everybody as though this were a family."

The remarks crystallize a leadership philosophy Grede has refined across two celebrity-backed fashion brands: Good American, the denim label she cofounded with Khloé Kardashian in 2016, and Skims, the $5 billion shapewear business she has helped turn into a household name.

What does Grede mean by "radical honesty"?

Grede, who serves as CEO of Good American, framed the directive as a guardrail against confusion, not cruelty. "But that doesn't mean that you miss empathy or that you treat people badly," she said.

Her prescription pairs consistent direct feedback with what she calls "radical honesty" — a practice designed to prevent blindsides when the employment relationship ends. The point, she suggested, is that employees should never wonder where they stand or how their work is being evaluated.

Where does empathy fit in?

Grede argued that compassion and corporate discipline are not in tension, and that the best operators hold both at once. "You can be an extremely empathetic leader and have the needs of your team and your people at the absolute forefront of what you're doing, [but you still need to maintain] an enterprise mentality to do what is right for the business," she said.

She extended that logic into a broader principle of stewardship. "If you're not doing right by the business, you can't do right by your people."

Who has to leave as a company grows?

In Grede's telling, scaling a business demands personnel churn — including the departures of the people who helped build it. "Not everybody grows at the same speed as the business," she said.

"The only thing that stays the same is your purpose and the reason that you started," she added. "Everything else [must] constantly evolve as your business grows."

The implication for founders is uncomfortable: even the early core of any company can outgrow its usefulness as the operating demands shift, and holding on to legacy hires for sentimental reasons can handicap the next phase of growth.

Why are the stakes different for female executives?

Grede pointed to what she characterized as an unfair cultural expectation that women in leadership roles soften their feedback or cushion difficult messages. "It is not the job of me or any other woman in a position of leadership to have to cotton ball everybody along the way," Grede said.

"You can still be honest without being brutal."

How does this fit Grede's track record?

The latest comments extend a body of public statements in which Grede has staked out demanding stances on workplace conduct. She has previously said she grows concerned when job candidates raise "work-life balance" in interviews, and she once described remote work as "career suicide."

Taken together, the pattern points to a founder who treats emotional warmth and managerial softness as separate categories — and who runs her organizations accordingly. For Skims, now valued by private investors at $5 billion, the approach has coincided with the brand's aggressive expansion across shapewear, loungewear and everyday apparel.

The next test is whether Grede's "radical honesty" framework survives contact with a larger organization. As Skims adds headcount, distribution partners and manufacturing capacity, the difference between candor and cruelty will get harder to police — and the operating culture she has built will get harder to keep intact.