Emma Grede’s debut book tour for Start With Yourself was supposed to be a celebration. Instead, it has become the source of two separate news cycles, both of which center on comments that landed poorly particularly among Black women who have long looked to Grede as an ally and advocate within the consumer space.
The most recent moment to draw widespread criticism came from an appearance on the She’s So Lucky podcast with host Les Alfred, where Grede explained why she chose not to invest in Ami Colé, the boundary-pushing beauty brand built specifically for melanin-rich skin. Her position, which she stated plainly, was that she only backs first time founders when both the person and the concept strike her as extraordinary. In the case of Ami Colé and its founder, Diarrha N’Diaye, she felt neither cleared that bar at the time.
The Ami Colé investment she declined
Ami Colé was not a forgettable brand by any reasonable measure. N’Diaye built it from concept to Sephora shelves in four years, earned five Allure Best of Beauty Awards, and cultivated one of the most devoted communities in the beauty industry. The brand was a direct response to a glaring gap in the market products designed with Black women at the center rather than as an afterthought at a time when the industry was still treating shade inclusivity like a passing trend.
When N’Diaye announced the brand’s closure in July 2025, the reaction online was immediate and heartfelt. In her public statement, she pointed to investor pressure and a notable shift in the appetite for backing brands built around inclusivity. What had attracted enthusiastic support in 2020 had, just a few years later, become harder to sell to the same rooms of investors. It was a truth many founders already knew but rarely said out loud.
The hire that followed and the tension it created
After the brand closed, Alicia Scott of Range Beauty connected N’Diaye with Grede, and in November 2025, SKIMS announced N’Diaye’s appointment as Executive Vice President of beauty and fragrance. The irony was not lost on anyone paying attention. The founder who had not cleared the bar for an investment check was now being handed the keys to the entire beauty division of a $5 billion company.
Grede addressed the apparent contradiction during the podcast appearance, framing the SKIMS role as a natural fit that gave N’Diaye access to infrastructure, mentorship and resources that building independently could not provide. She also suggested that N’Diaye had, in her own words, acknowledged gaps in her business experience. That may well be true it is the kind of honest self assessment many founders make privately but attributing that reflection publicly, and in the context of explaining a declined investment, shifts the framing in a way that feels less like advocacy and more like justification.
Grede then addressed the community’s reaction directly, making clear that she was not seeking their understanding and that the purpose of business is to generate profit rather than to serve a community. The logic is not entirely wrong in isolation but spoken by someone who has built considerable cultural capital specifically within Black consumer spaces, the framing struck many as dismissive and tone-deaf.
The broader pattern worth noting
This was not an isolated moment from the tour. Earlier comments from Grede about her approach to motherhood, in which she described herself as a present parent for roughly three hours a day, drew pointed criticism from Black women who noted that the philosophy only holds up with a level of wealth, flexibility and support that the vast majority of mothers in this country do not have access to and that Black mothers in particular have historically been denied.
As for N’Diaye, she has moved into her role leading product development, innovation and brand strategy for SKIMS Beauty with quiet steadiness. She has spoken about knowing where her strengths lie in product, community building and the kind of storytelling that creates emotional connection with people she has never met. Those are not small things. And watching her thrive inside a massive platform may, in time, be the most compelling response to all of it.
