Emma Grede didn’t have a business mentor. Yet, she carved out a fortune via her talent management and entertainment marketing agency, Independent Talent Brand (ITB) Worldwide. “I didn’t know anyone growing up who had their own business,” Grede told CNBC Make It. “So I really didn’t know what I was getting into.”

Emma was born in East London, England, to a white mother and a Jamaican and Trinidadian father

Emma Grede has white and Caribbean ethnicity. Her mother, Jenny-Lee Findlay is white; her absent father was Jamaican and Trinidadian. 

Grede learned work ethic from her mother, who raised four daughters as a single mother. She stated in a guest profile for Shark Tank:

“My mom went out to work every single day, so I played a really big role in raising my sisters. I watched my mom work incredibly hard, and she really taught me that I could do anything so long as you were willing to work really hard for it.”

Grede, the oldest sibling, stated on the Tamron Hall Show that she was the pseudo-mother in the family. “My mom and I we’d say, ‘She [Findlay] is the dad, I’m the mom, so we have three kids together.’ It’s a pretty interesting dynamic in my family,” she stated. 

Grede said she didn’t see race as a major issue until she moved to the United States

Much has been said about Emma Grede being the first Black female shark on Shark Tank. It’s a momentous feat in the search for inclusivity, but Emma doesn’t view it as a big deal. She told Fast Company:

“It’s a difficult thing for me to comment on, because I come from a place where I have just never really thought about it in such–and I hate to use this phrase–black and white terms. I never really have.”

“Someone has to come first and be the first black person in that office. At some point, you’ve just got to move forward and not give a shit.”

Emma grew up in an area of England where diversity and inclusivity were the norms. “I grew up in East London, where the immigrant population and black population are dominant,” she stated. 

Grede didn’t view race as a major issue until she moved to the United States, where, according to Grede, conversations about race happen daily. The investor said she didn’t know there was Black media and white media. 

Grede hopes to create a world where race isn’t the first thing people think about. She told Fast Company that diversity and inclusivity are crucial to her brands:

“We have a certain amount of women from all different races because that’s how I see the world, that’s my interpretation of beauty, and so I think it comes from a very natural place for me.”

“A lot of women come up to me and say they love Good American because we show women with their hair texture,” Grede told Soho House. “Inclusivity has such a broad meaning. Representation matters.”