Martha Stewart Biography

Martha Stewart is a lifestyle maniac, media personality, author and notable American business mogul. Martha was born in 1941 and at age 13, she worked as a model and appeared in several fashion shows and visual advertisements. In 1962, she graduated from Bernard College with a degree in European and architectural history. While studying at Bernard College, she had met Andrew Stewart and they married in 1961. In 1967, Stewart was hired as stockbroker for a boutique firm at Wall Street until 1973 when the family moved to Connecticut.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Martha Stewart Biography specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More After the family had renovated an old farmhouse they had bought in their new residence, Martha Stewart focused her attention onto cooking, an art she had learned from her mother and from various cookbooks. The couple took up the renovation themselves and this was the earliest indication of Stewart ’s elegance at restoring and restoring things. In 1976, she established a catering business with a friend. The business was very successful, but dipped when the two owners clashed. Stewart bought her part of the venture and continued to develop it, registering the business under the name Martha Stewart, Inc. Ten years after it was established, Martha Stewart, Inc. had grown to unimaginable proportions with a total asset of $1 million and serving a number of companies and celebrities. She also entered the publishing business when she wrote her first book, Entertaining. The book phenomenal success and she capitalized on this with other publications such as Martha Stewart’s Quick Cook Menus, Martha Stewart’s Hors d’Oeuvres, Martha Stewart’s Christmas, and Martha Stewart’s Wedding Planner. The success affected Stewart’s life and her marriage ended in divorce in 1990 (Biography.com, 2011). In 1991, Stewart’s business changed names a nd became Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., this coincided with the release of her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, published by Time Publishing Ventures. The magazine’s circulation peaked in 2002 with more than 2 million copies per issue. Stewart’s lifestyle business soon expanded to two magazines, a checkout-size recipe publication, a television show, newspaper column, book sequels, radio show, and close a quarter million dollars in annual revenue. On October 1999, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., was listed at the New York Stock Exchange and at the of the first day, the 72 million shares had almost doubled their initial prices. Stewart has a 95 percent stake in her business that is worth $1.2 billion. In July 2004, Stewart was imprisoned for five months and fined $30,000 after she was accused of engaging in insider trading back in December 2001. She had received information from her broker that the ImClone Systems shares would fall due a pending ruling by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Stewart sold all her 3,928 shares and the following day, ImClone Systems shares fell by 19%. She was released from prison in October 2004 and finished her sentence by serving a 5-month house arrest at her home. Martha Stewarts business empire continues to grow and even included publications by other authors such as Everyday Food, Body + Soul, and the now-defunct Blueprint (Biography.com, 2011). Martha Stewart has shown excellent leadership skills since establishing her business back in the 1970s and this is evidenced by the businesses’ phenomenal growth from a mere catering business to a billion dollar empire encompassing several units. Under her leadership, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has perfected the art of synergy, with her television shows, website and magazines selling her products.Advertising Looking for essay on biography? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More At a time, it seemed that the MSLO empire was falling: Kmart, the empire’s largest outlet for selling household products, was closing hundreds of its branches, its magazines were being challenged by newer magazines, and major television stations were cancelling Stewart’s shows. The worst part of this downturn was that MSLO’s boss was headed to jail. After serving her sentence, Martha made a turnaround and the various branches of the business have grown tremendously, and new ones have been added. This demonstrates Martha’s leadership ability of never giving up even when conditions demand so. One of the most important functions of a leader is integration, and in this area, Martha has excelled. She has made sure that all parts of the company are working towards a common, integrated goal, which is to improve lifestyle. For a company that mainly focuses on design and lifestyle, this implies that, it must first have a unique style, aesthetic, and ‘voice’, i.e. a distinctive way of corresponding with both the readers and viewers. Fortunately, Martha has succeeded in this area and has successfully created a unique style and level of quality that is steady across the large array of the MSLO empire, from one magazine to another, and to books, to TV shows, and to the internet. Martha leadership abilities have enabled her to establish and maintain a consistent style, voice and level of quality across various forms of media and other products at differing price levels. In way, we can say that integration and setting standards has been Martha’s most important skill, or achievement (Tracinski, 2004). Stewart has established working relationships with various businesses such as Kmart and various television channels, spurring her company to higher echelons. Even when Kmart filed for bankruptcy, she remained loyal to the company and this helped Kmart come out of the financial crisis. Stewart has also exercised self-discipline through her undiv ided focus on the products under the MSLO business. Stewart has embraced creativity and this has seen her come up with various products that have enjoyed positive public reviews. I admire Martha Stewart due to her embrace of hard work, determination and loyalty, traits that have enabled her business to grow to unimaginable proportions. Martha has led with her heart as well as her head and this has seen her create networks with several firms and bodies, these connections have significantly led to the rise of the MSLO empire. Stewart’s determination saw her make a turnaround in her business after many people dismissed the company as a dying horse. Upon finishing her sentence, she worked hard and the company surpassed its previous glory as revenues grew by more than 50 percent and the television shows received wider viewership as more television stations aired her shows (Weaver, 2011). Conclusion In order to survive the cutthroat competition that exists in today’s corpora te environment, a person has to possess certain skills and competencies that will make him/her be seen as a leader and not just as a manager or boss. It is through the possession of these qualities that a person will have a chance to climb the corporate ladder, or run a venture and enable it to meet its targets and fulfill its goal. Although business leaders are associated with a certain set of traits, there is no single set that will be exhibited by all leaders, rather, there are basic rules that have to present in a person so that he/she may be readied for the tasks that are in store for them. This is what defines leaders and enables them achieve success at business dealings that they engage in. In this topic, I learnt the traits that make us to recognize a person as a business leader, the five most important of which are good communication skills, motivation, creativity, power, and vision. These traits are vital in moulding an ordinary person to achieve unmatched success in a bus iness field of their choice. This was quite evident in the study of Martha Stewart who, despite being a normal person earlier in her formative years, has risen to become one of America’s most influential women.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Martha Stewart Biography specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Stewart was able to manage her company single-handedly right from scratch up to a level at which she employed a number to assist her. Exercising her leadership skills, Stewart manages to turn the tiny catering business into a multi-million dollar business with networks in various sections of the economy. And when numerous news media predicted the end of her business empire, she comes out and manages a turnaround that sees the MSLO surpass its earlier success. A business leader bears a heavy responsibility in ensuring that a business, whether a start-up or established, small company or a multinational, based lo cally or abroad, achieves its objectives, and even surpasses projections. This is made possible by a meticulous application of leadership skills. This business leadership assignment enabled me to have an understanding of the basic traits required by a business leader, and how these qualities have been applied in real-life scenarios. References Biography.com. (2011). Martha Stewart Biography. Web. Attacks on Stewart Depend on a Cultural Blindness Toward Business Achievement. Web. Weaver, R. (2011). Five Essential Leadership Traits: The Story Of Martha Stewart From Kmart To Macy’s. Web. This essay on Martha Stewart Biography was written and submitted by user Linda Robbins to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

How to Write a Sample Comprehensive Exam Essay

How to Write a Sample Comprehensive Exam EssayThis article will help you through the process of taking a comprehensive exam, whether it is at college or university level. I will talk about getting a sample essay and what to do next.The first thing you want to do is write an essay on a topic that you know well. This is the best way to start because you already know what the topic is and it is easier to write about. A good tip is to just pick one of your hobbies or interests and write about it. Don't worry about plagiarism, because by writing a factual essay on a topic that you know well, you are less likely to get caught.Next, you need to make a timeline. Use a notebook, but don't make up a date. I would suggest that you use the same day to write one. Do this for both your essay and for the essay that you will be testing in class. You also want to avoid using too many paragraphs, as this can cause your paper to become longer than it needs to be.The second step is to take the essay and sit down to write out the questions you will be asking. For example, if you will be testing Computer Science, write out all the questions that pertain to that subject. Write them out without having any ideas about which ones are correct and which ones need to be rewritten.Now, sit down to do the actual test. When doing this, you will want to focus on being completely prepared, so be sure to do the test over until you feel 100% confident that you have the answers correct.Writing the essay should only take a few minutes, while the test may last as long as half an hour. The only time I would recommend that you rewrite the test is if it is something like physics where youdon't understand everything, then rewrite it as such.Once you are done with the test, do not feel bad about rewriting it. It will not make a difference to the results, but it may to the grades you receive from your school. It will not make a difference for those who took the test with you to grade it.After all, everyon e will be grading the paper, so you want to make sure that you grade your own work. This will make your grade reflects your current level of understanding of the material, not the level of your comprehension of the material.