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 US prescription pharmaceutical business. He was later 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 of specialty pharma companies in the world in just a few years' time. Shire now has almost 3,000 employees in 15 countries and reported over 1.6 billion dollars in sales for the fiscal year 2005. Emmens is also a leader who is recognized for his ability to mentor younger workers, as is attested to by his being named, in 2006, the Honorable Mentor by the HBA. Emmens is frequently asked to keynote conferences, appearing, over the last six months, at the HBA event in New York, the Windhover Pharmaceutical Strategic Outlook, the Pharmaceutical Executive Sales Summit, and the 11th Annual Pharmaceutical Conference, among others. He lives in Philadelphia, PA. Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of five books 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 NEA 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 essays are frequently anthologized; she has served as a juror on a number of national book prize committees; and she has conducted numerous writing workshops. William Sulit, who earned his graduate degree in architecture from Yale University, is an award-winning illustrator and a partner in the award-winning communications firm, Fusion.Beth Kephart's first book was a National Book Award finalist & was named a best book of the year by "Salon," the "Philadelphia Inquirer," & others. Kephart has won a 2000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the 1998 Leeway grant, & the 1997 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts top grant for fiction. Her essays & articles have appeared in magazine nationwide. She lives in Pennsylvania.