Capparell, Stephanie

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Capparell, Stephanie

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended St. Mary's College; graduate of Boston University; Columbia University, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home— New York, NY. Office— Wall Street Journal, 200 Liberty St., New York, NY 10281. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, editor, journalist. Wall Street Journal, Brussels office, and New York, NY, writer, editor, 1990—; spent two years in Istanbul, Turkey, setting up and editing an English-language newspaper; Substantial Films, New York, NY, owner, producer.

WRITINGS:

(With Margot Morrell)Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, Viking (New York, NY), 2001.

The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business, Free Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to Macmillan's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and The Rough Guide: Turkey.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stephanie Capparell is a writer, editor, and journalist. She holds a journalism degree from Boston University and studied international relations at Columbia University. In 1990 she went to work for the Wall Street Journal, initially joining the Brussels office of the financial newspaper. She eventually became the editor of the "Marketplace" column for the U.S.-based edition, working out of New York City. Over the course of her career, she has also spent time in Istanbul, Turkey, assisting in the development and establishment of an English-language newspaper, which she went on to edit for a time. She has contributed to various books, including Macmillan's Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and TheRough Guide: Turkey. In addition, she owns her own production company, Substantial Films, through which she produces documentaries, such as her work on the Turkish dissident poet Nazim Hikmet.

Capparell's first book,Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, which she wrote with Margot Morrell, was released in 2001. In this work, she and Morrell relate the achievements and determination of the famous explorer to the lives and goals of everyday businessmen. Unlike many international heroes, Ernest Shackleton is notable for having gained popularity, support, and acclaim, despite never having achieved his ultimate aim. He is considered a success, based on his sense of purpose and the respect he earned for never having lost a life during one of his expeditions. He operated on sheer optimism and determination, and those characteristics made him beloved. John Harvey-Jones, in a review for Management Today, remarked that "Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell have done us a service by their practical analysis of the lessons we can all learn from Shackleton's way of doing things." Caroline Perkins, writing for the Nation's Restaurant News, noted the book's ability to "capture the essence of the experience and relate it meaningfully to lessons for leaders with examples that become burned into one's memory." Dale Ferris, in a Library Journal review, praised the authors for their "focus on the revealing words of those directly involved in this most amazing experience."

In The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business, Capparell takes a look at the Pepsi Corporation's policy during the 1940s and 1950s of hiring African American salespeople in order to effectively market their product to the African American segments of the population. Despite these salespeople's importance to the company's goals, they still were required to meet high sales marks and were often forced to ignore various slights and signs of racism in the workplace. Capparell notes that such a sales strategy was unusual for the time but was marked by its relative stealth, since most companies feared alienating white customers should they decide to target other members of the population more directly. Pepsi's major determining factor in their decision to market to African Americans was their inability to surpass Coca-Cola's sales. Despite the challenge, however, those individuals who were hired as Pepsi salespeople were aware that they were crossing lines previously drawn between them and their career aspirations and were therefore making progress on more than just a personal level. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found the writing uneven, but commented that "this account makes clear the incredible barriers to black achievement that existed just half a century ago." A contributor for Sales & Marketing found the book to be "an absorbing story of unsung heroes who dared to call the American dream their own." Tony Chapelle, writing for the Black Issues Book Report, noted that Capparell "recounts this tale with veneration, as well as scope. She plaits facts and figures about the segregation of that era around interviews of the six surviving members in the special-marketing group."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Biography, spring, 2007, Warren Goldstein, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business, p. 311.

Black Issues Book Review, March-April, 2007, Tony Chapelle, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge, p. 27.

Booklist, January 1, 2001, David Rouse, review of Shackleton's Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer, p. 889; December 1, 2006, Mary Whaley, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge, p. 9.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, May, 2007, G.E. Kaupins, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge, p. 1574.

Library Journal, February 15, 2001, Dale Farris, review of Shackleton's Way, p. 179.

Management Today, March 2001, "A Husky Hero for Our Time," p. 48; December, 2001, John Harvey-Jones, review of Shackleton's Way, p. 35.

Nation's Restaurant News, April 24, 2006, "Lessons from Antarctic Explorer Can Spark Ideas for Businesses," review of Shackleton's Way, p. 18.

Organisations & People, May, 2002, Paul Barber, review of Shackleton's Way, p. 47.

People Management, June 28, 2001, Peter Honey, review of Shackleton's Way, p. 63.

Publishers Weekly, November 27, 2000, review of Shackleton's Way, p. 64; December 4, 2006, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge, p. 48.

Sales & Marketing Management, April, 2007, review of The Real Pepsi Challenge, p. 40.