Chapter 2: The Board

The Board (after The Event)
John looked out over the isle of dogs - a true island since the fall of the Thames barrier. John's unsurpassed gut feel for political manoeuvring and lightning fast reactions had allowed him to lead the construction of the barricade, raising the North bank of the Thames by almost 20 metres around the isle. He simultaneously led a similar project across the East India dock road, creating the bounds of his initial empire, the Zone 1 operations of New London Limited.

Now everything the light touched belonged to him, sadly most of it now lay submerged. The familiar old landmarks of Decathlon, Stave Hill and the Bootcamp Cafe all lay buried under swirling torrents, lost like memories of a simpler time where Lycra, burpees and brunch took up more headspace than corporate governance, acquisitive expansion and public relations.

As he gazed upon his kingdom from the 50th storey of 33 Canada Square, John realised that if he looked closely, he could just about make out his old penthouse in Canada Water. Amazingly, only the tower block that housed his former home stood tall. Whilst others had crumbled and washed away, his remained. "Quite the allegory", he thought, "man am I smart".

He wondered if the small startup, BCF (co-chaired by his old acquaintances Chad and Santiago, who's HQ actually occupied the old Scottson penthouse), was still operating. He assumed it wasn't, and he was not uncertain. Inside information remained a valuable currency, particularly when it didn't have to compete with sterling.

John turned his pristine leather office chair slowly. Deliberately. To address his subordinates.

"Good morning gentleman. And m'lady"

John Scottson (CEO) tipped his imaginary hat at Maz. He was nothing if not an equal opportunities employer. With a woman, Dr Lindsay in his wheelchair and John's own past sexual experimentations all represented on the board, he was only the hiring of Lim Wyn away from calling "house" on diversity bingo.

The board comprised Dr. Lindsay Scott-Peters (President of R&D), Maz Scottson (COO), Bobby Castellano (President of Acquisitions & Business Development), Ned Greenwood (CFO) and the COSEC.

"OK Simpkins, what's on the agenda?", barked John.

"Just an investment proposal from Ned and Bob's acquisition review today Sir", muttered the CoSec, handing out the paper agenda and materials. All printed single sided.

"OK Mr. Greenwood, the floor is yours"

Ned Greenwood (CFO) stood and skilfully laid out his plans for "tax" relief for small enterprises - a scheme proposing to relax the obligatory contribution of "multi-purpose productivity units" required of every employee of NLL.

In a world without the banking system, time is the only resource that truly carries value. As part of the hiring process, every New London Ltd. employee is given a 27 point productivity assessment - covering physical, mental and skill tasks as well as others that remained a mystery.

The results of this assessment are processed through NLL's proprietary productivity algorithm and the employee is assigned an indexed productivity score (IP). An IP of 100 (roughly average) would mean that every hour of an employee's time is worth 100 "multi-purpose productivity units" or "MPUs".

Employees are required to submit labour to the value of 5,400 MPUs per week to the various divisions of NLL. That's 9 hours a day. for 6 days for someone with an IP of 100.

Ned's proposal was to reduce this to 4,000 MPUs for budding entrepreneurs to allow them time to pursue launching a startup, under the proviso, obviously, that the business provides tangible economic contribution to NLL within a 1 year timeframe. An "small business tax credit" if you will.

"Thanks Ned. Ned?"

"Yes John"

"We've known each other a long time haven't we?"

"Yes John, way before the event"

"Yeah, good times. Tell me Ned. When exactly is it that you think I became a fucking socialist?"

"Sorry John?"

"The unencumbered allocation of our resources by the free market is the one thing that holds the fabric of New London Ltd. together. The day I introduce market distortion is that day we crumble. Denied. Next item."

Ned Greenwoord (CFO), sat down sheepishly, yielding the floor to the next speaker.

Bobby Castellano (President of Acquisitions and Business Development) began his update.

"Good news that the acquisition of Elephant Partners is complete and the re-branding of the subsidiary to 'NLL Zone 7' is imminent"

"Great work, I thought we were having trouble getting the two Webster partners to agree terms?", said John.

"Well, it turns out the partner upstairs, Mr. Airbee, coerced them into relinquishing voting rights so they could move a few floors higher in the tower. As the sole wielder of power at Elephant partners, and less of a naive realist than the others, he was more than happy to sign"

Ironically, the Websters actually owned the penthouse of Elephant Tower before The Event. However, they had moved to a house in order to raise a family and had let their penthouse to Mr. Airbee. When the waters rose, ownership rights had lapsed and this simple mistake had stripped the Websters of any leverage they could have had. Despite an admirable and rapid rise to partnership at Elephant Partners after the event, their position was always untenable.

"Coerced them by himself? He may have potential?", quizzed John, knowing the answer.

"Not completely, one of my team may have provided some consulting advice on the process. And yes, don't worry, the consultancy will be reflected in the Zone 7's tax bill!", Bob replied.

"Excellent stuff Bob. Now. We've skirted around our real challenge for too long. It's time for the game changer" said John, all too casually.

Bob, usually calm stood rigid, his usual slightly curved shoulders replaced by the perfect posture of a marine at attention. He knew this day would come but didn't think it would be this soon.

It was time to return to Suburban Associates LLP and begin negotiations.