¶ … businessperson Ellen Marram. Specifically, it will profile Ellen Marram and her position in the market economy. Ellen Marram is a woman who got her MBA at a time when few women were majoring in business, and fewer still were gaining their MBAs. She has had a long and varied business career, and continues to change and grow as the face of business grows across the globe. Ellen Marram

Ellen R. Marram has a long and varied career in American business, and has gained notoriety for a variety of business moves and her position in the market economy. Marram graduated in 1968 from Wellesley College with a degree in economics. In 2001, the College awarded her an Alumnae Achievement Award. Marram received her MBA in 1970 from the prestigious Harvard Business School, when women MBAs were quite few and far between. The Harvard Business School has also awarded Marram an Alumni Achievement Award.

She then began her business career in Marketing at Lever Brothers, and then moved to Johnson & Johnson Personal Products. She joined Standard Brands, Inc., in 1977, and stayed with the company after Nabisco acquired them in 1981. When Marram began her career at Standard Brands, she worked as a group products manager, and moved into the vice-president position after the takeover by Nabisco. Her career at Nabisco bloomed, and she worked her way to president of the Grocery Division in 1987, where her responsibilities included "eight different functional areas: marketing, business development, finance, manufacturing, information systems, quality assurance, personnel, and research and development" (Forbes and Piercy 90). In 1988, just one year later, she moved to the top spot in Nabisco, becoming president and CEO of Nabisco Biscuit Company. It was during her time at Nabisco that Marram created a low-fat alternative to high fat snack foods that became the well-known and best-selling brand - SnackWell's.

Looking for new challenges, Marram left Nabisco in 1993, and moved to Tropicana Beverages to take over the president and chief executive position.

She moved from Nabisco to be president and chief executive...

While she was at the helm, she turned lackluster Tropicana into a global juice-industry leader. At one time, she had expected Tropicana to go public and had planned to remain head of the newly independent company. Instead, Seagram sold the unit to PepsiCo Inc., in August, 1998. Three months later, Marram quit and announced she was looking for a CEO slot in a major consumer-products company (Brady).
Marram's career was at it's height after she left Tropicana, which she had taken from a local Florida company to a global entity with plants in Asia and Europe and orange groves in Asia. During her tenure at Tropicana, she was named one of the Top 25 Managers of the Year 1998 by Business Week magazine. Her next challenge came in 1999, when she took over leadership of a small, start-up Internet company called efdex Inc. The company planned to act as an online food and drink exchange and trading system where purveyors and clients could meet globally and create business opportunities and alliances.

However, Marram's tenure at efdex lasted less than a year, and although neither the company nor Marram would discuss the details, rumors spread Marram was removed from her leadership role by the company's board of directors. Later, the company folded. Her disappointment in the dot.com world did not last long. In September of 2000, she joined North Castle Partnership, located in Stanford, Connecticut, where she is chairman and a managing partner in charge of the company's beverage lines, including "Fantasia Fresh Juice Co., Naked Juice, M.H. Zeigler and Sons, Orchid Island Juice Co., Saratoga Beverage Group and Wiman Beverage Co. Her company is the country's largest fresh and refrigerated premium beverage business" (Trigaux). Marram's tenure at North Castle seems to be stable and just what she was looking for at this time in her career. While she enjoyed her time in the dot.com world, "I've learned about the Internet and technology,' she says" (Brady), it is clear Marram's career path leans toward more traditional packaged goods and beverage business, rather than in the World Wide…