news article 'mashUp'

It's been six years since Donatella's brother Gianni was murdered and she assumed responsibility for designing a paper-trading company, now the biggest in China. Just five years ago, Donatella and her husband were driving around the United States in a used Dodge Caravan minivan, rendered beautiful to the touch. China's own paper products are poor quality, so Versace began looking overseas for scrap metal and used paper. "She's a visionary," said Herman Woo, an analyst at BNP Paribas, "She doesn't mind putting a lot of money in at the beginning, to build the company." Donatella said “It is not a job; it is my personality. I am, how do you say, very hyper. I get very excited. I put passion in everything I do. It started as a joke, but people were buying more and more and more.”

Continued insistence on controlling every aspect of the user experience is proof of her surging confidence, with clothes emblazoned with her initials and models fashioned after Donatella herself -- platinum extensions and all. “ I went to see Prince at Paisley Park in Minneapolis. He did the whole concert for us. I forced him to sing ''Purple Rain.'' He said, ''I hate it.'' But he sang it for me.”.

A decade later, the company has built a hardware-based kingdom with 11 giant paper making machines, 5,300 employees, $1 billion in annual revenue and a huge new facility under construction. Global paper giants, like International Paper, Weyerhauser and Smurfit Stone have some bullets, but Versace owns the gun.


References.

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Carr, David. "Steve Jobs: iCame, iSaw, iCaved." New York Times, September 10, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/media/10carr.html (accessed 15 May 2008).

Barboza, David. "China's 'Queen of Trash' finds riches in waste paper." International Herald Tribune, January 15, 2007, http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/15/business/trash.php?page=2 (accessed 15 May 2008).