'Shark Tank' Hires Emma Grede To Be First Black Woman On Panel
There’s a new shark in town!
For the newest season of Shark Tank, the series will have its first Black woman shark on the panel. Good American CEO and SKIMS founding partner Emma Grede, will be one of this season’s guest panelists. She will join recurring sharks, Mark Cuban, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner and Barbara Corcoran.
Grede, an entrepreneur from London, will make her grand appearance during the season premiere on Oct. 8, according to Shadow And Act.
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Although she dropped out of London College of Fashion, Greede did go into fashion show production and celebrity partnerships afterwards and has worked with brands like Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Zac Posen, Christopher Kane, Chivas, Mercedes-Benz, and Sky.
She was the chairman of entertainment brand ITB which she founded at age 26 but sold the company to Rogers and Cowan in 2018. Grede is now the Chairwoman of Fifteen Percent Pledge and Board Member of The RealReal. She also serves as an active trustee and board member of Women for Women International and Baby2Baby.
'I've been doing celebrity partnerships for a long time, and I started to realize that a lot of what I was being asked to do was to put together very 'diverse' campaigns,” she told ELLE UK. “Oftentimes, I would cast women [in a campaign] for a brand that didn't make clothes that would fit them. 'I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if we created a company where we made clothes for every woman, and the company looked exactly like the 'diverse' campaign, with me at the helm, a Black woman?', and it worked."
The season premiere of Shark Tank will air on Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.