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Abstract
The career of Martha Stewart, a second-generation Polish immigrant in America, who fashioned herself into a lifestyle and housekeeping expert. Her business empire, which was named after her, was involved in publishing, television shows, retail merchandizing and direct selling. In December 2001, she sold about 4000 shares of Imclone, a biotech company, a day before its share prices fell, (due to FDA's rejection of its application for a new cancer drug). When news of this sale came to light in June 2002, she was suspected of making the sale on the basis of non-public inside information. This controversy had a negative impact on her business. In this context, analysts questioned the wisdom of associating a company too closely with a person.
"Martha Stewart built a small catering business into a media empire, becoming one of America's most successful female entrepreneurs by telling people how to entertain, cook and decorate their homes". (Profile of Martha Stewart)
"Using skills such as gardening, cooking baking and sewing learned from her Polish immigrant family. Stewart became an iron-willed perfectionist with an eye for detail and innovation". (Profile of Martha Stewart)
"She was born Martha Kostyra in New Jersey 1941, one of six children of a schoolteacher and a pharmaceuticals salesman. She worked part-time as a model while she studied art, European history and architectural history at Barnard College in New York". (Profile of Martha Stewart)
In 1967 she became a stockbroker on Wall Street. When recession swept stock markets in 1973, Stewart left the brokerage and moved her family to Connecticut.
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