About Beth Kephart
Matthew Emmens began his career in international pharmaceuticals with Merck & Co., Inc., in 1974. There he held a wide range of sales, marketing, and administrative positions before volunteering in 1992 to help establish Astra Merck, the joint venture between Merck and Astra AB of Sweden. He later became president and chief executive officer. In 1999 he joined Merck KGaA and established EMD Pharmaceuticals, the company's U.S. prescription pharmaceutical business. Subsequently, he was promoted to president of the global prescription business and lived in Germany. In 2003, he joined Shire Pharmaceuticals as chief executive officer and member of the board. As CEO of Shire, Emmens has engineered an extraordinary revitalization, transforming Shire into one of the top specialty pharmaceutical companies in the world in just a few years' time.
Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of five memoirs and a partner in Fusion Communications, a company that collaborates with leading U.S. companies on the creation of special publications. She was a 1997 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant winner, a 1998 National Book Award finalist, a 2000 winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a winner of a 2005 Pew Fellowship in the Arts grant, and a winner of the 2005 Speakeasy Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal Europe, Salon.com, and elsewhere. Her sixth book, Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, was pubished in the summer of 2007, and Undercover, her first novel for young adults, was recently released. Two more young adult novels are forthcoming. Please contact Beth Kephart through her blog, http: //beth- kephart.blogspot.com.
Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of five memoirs and a partner in Fusion Communications, a company that collaborates with leading U.S. companies on the creation of special publications. She was a 1997 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fiction grant winner, a 1998 National Book Award finalist, a 2000 winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a winner of a 2005 Pew Fellowship in the Arts grant, and a winner of the 2005 Speakeasy Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal Europe, Salon.com, and elsewhere. Her sixth book, Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, was pubished in the summer of 2007, and Undercover, her first novel for young adults, was recently released. Two more young adult novels are forthcoming. Please contact Beth Kephart through her blog, http: //beth- kephart.blogspot.com.
