To Our Readers

At TIME, we have long believed there should be a clear distinction between our editorial and commercial sides, or what we often call Church and State. It is important to the integrity of both that the needs of our readers and our advertising clients are managed separately, though this doesn’t mean that the Church staff and the State staff exist in isolation. We come together in a variety of circumstances, to celebrate each other’s successes, receive training on strange new software packages and plan our common future. But recently we have been brought closer for the very saddest of reasons: to mourn the passing of a beloved colleague, makeup manager Joanna Chapman. Her death from cancer at age 32 has affected everyone who knew or worked with her, from London to Johannesburg to Singapore.

Joanna’s job—working closely with the editors and the publisher to determine the precise placement of each advertising page and to deliver a cost-efficient, reader-friendly magazine—put her at the front line of the Church-State divide each week. But, as Time Europe’s president Wil Merritt says, "In her talented hands this complex role seemed effortless." The impression of ease was due partly to experience: Joanna joined the company as an assistant to the Time advertising sales team in 1989, and by the time she transferred to the production department in 1995 she knew how to handle both demanding clients and fussy editors. But the biggest factor in her success was her enormous enthusiasm for Time. She loved the magazine, relished the challenges of its fast-paced news coverage and aimed for excellence in everything.

In pursuing her many interests outside the office, from Ceroc dancing to scuba diving, Joanna was full of energy and natural curiosity. At work, she displayed the same characteristics, keeping up to date with industry developments, honing her skills and motivating the staff she trained so well—Gwen Mostyn, Manjinder Dhaliwal and Gemma North—to do the same. Joanna’s colleagues will always benefit from having known her, but we’d like future employees of Time to be able to learn from her professional example too. So we are establishing the Joanna Chapman Development Grant, a vocational training scholarship to be awarded annually. The judges won't care which branch of the Time family the winner works for; they'll just be looking for someone with Joanna’s genuine thirst for knowledge. This, I hope, will be a fitting memorial to the extraordinarily brave young woman whom we all—Church and State alike—miss very much.