Martha Stewart Profile

"I have set a standard, and I'm going to stick to the standard. I may have been able to grow faster and maybe my business could have been bigger, but because I really feel very serious about my subject, I really want to be hands-on."

It is hard for most of us to imagine how Martha Stewart's business could have grown any bigger or any faster, but it is typical that she can imagine it herself. She had already enjoyed successful careers as a fashion model and stockbroker before starting her first catering business in 1976. In a few years, a venture she started in her own basement kitchen had become a multi-million dollar industry.

Her vision of simple but elegant living has reached the public through dozens of lavishly illustrated best-selling books, through instructional videos and television specials, her own lifestyle magazine, branded housewares, and a nationally syndicated weekly television series. She has been celebrated as the "Queen of the Home," and America's premier lifestyle authority. She has faced more than her share of challenges as a public person, and as leader of a multi-million dollar conglomerate, but she has kept her good humor through crisis and controversy, and that may prove the most remarkable accomplishment of all.