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“Humility, ” she said, then sat back in her chair, a smug smile on her face. She seemed pretty darn proud of herself for figuring that out. He wasn’t humble enough. But being humble wouldn’t earn an entrepreneur four million bucks in seed funding. It also wouldn’t pull this company out of the hole it was in.
“Name a single successful entrepreneur who’s humble,” he said.
“I’m not talking about how you feel. I’m talking about how you come across. You’re an expert in founding companies, but my expertise is in image. Branding. We need to rebrandyou.”
This was starting to get a little annoying. He called her in here to tell her she was one of the few he was keeping on, and she was attacking his character? Insulting him?
Telling him things he knew were true but didn’t want to hear?
She leaned forward. “Silicon Valley is like a big fishbowl. One business fails, everyone knows about it, especially when there are massive layoffs.”
As much as he hated to admit it, she was one hundred percent right about that. He was laying off hundreds of people. How could he expect word not to get around? They were heading into the weekend, too, when friends would be getting together. Word would spread, and the uphill battle he was already facing would get even tougher.
“Everyone’s looking at the guy who took the private jet to a conference.”
“It was a helicopter—”
She nodded. “Yes, well, a helicopter becomes a private jet from one retelling to the next.”
Oh. Yeah. He supposed he could see that.
“People who haven’t even met you will see you as I did until I walked in here. A pompous, spoiled, tech billionaire who blew all his investors’ money on personal indulgences. You aren’t that way, though, are you?”
“No!” The word came out much more forcefully than he’d intended.
Every word Brooke was saying was right, but it seemed absurd to him that people would picture him as the type to show off to friends. He’d been carefully crafting an image of a guy who had it all together. The helicopter had belonged to one of his investors, and the suite at the sports stadium had been a client’s. It was all done in the name of showing off TravTech as a company that had its act together.
“What you need right now is to eat a big slice of humble pie.” Brooke picked up her pen and started frantically writing something in bright purple ink on the page in front of her. “We have to get you on a press tour. Some interviews, maybe a profile in a few publications.”
“I thought you were marketing, not PR.”
“I’m a branding expert,” she said. “That’s why your company hired me. Which brings me to the next task.”
She wrote something else down on the page. He strained to read it, but the print was too small and, from his perspective, upside-down.
Finally, after writing two full paragraphs of notes in tiny lettering, she looked up at him again. “Youneed to get to know your team. It’s no longer acceptable for you not to be face to face with every single member of your staff. You said there will be thirty-five of us?”
He nodded, feeling more than a little numb at this point.
“Then we need a staff meeting. Next week. I’ll work with HR to arrange it. Wait.” She’d pushed her seat back and was on her way to standing when something ran through her head that seemed to stop her. Now those bright green eyes were trained directly on him. “Is there still an HR department?”
Justin shook his head. “One person. By the end of the day, anyway. Charlie McLaughlin will be your HR contact. I’m going to start calling people in one at a time to deliver the bad news, so you might want to…”
She nodded. “Got it. I’ll work from home, getting all this information together. See you Monday morning!”
And with that, she was out. She turned, planner pressed tightly to her chest, and strode confidently from the room. He was left watching her go, that long mane of dark curls bouncing against her back as she headed straight to her desk, he presumed to gather her laptop and head to wherever it was she lived.
He hated himself for thinking it, but it was going to be a heck of a lot of fun working with her.
3
By Monday morning, Brooke had a full schedule made out for Justin. She’d waited until late afternoon to email Charlie, who surprisingly responded immediately. They agreed to set up a Monday-morning meeting with Justin to discuss the next steps.
Brooke took a deep breath as she rode in the elevator to the top floor, where Justin’s office was located. He’d rarely occupied that office before the layoffs. From what she always understood, he was too busy running all over the country, promoting the business and lining up clients. A tutoring app required networking with educators, so he spoke at every conference he could. Brooke couldn’t believe she’d never even taken the time to research what the man running her company looked like.
As she entered his office, he was sitting behind his all-glass desk, a big picture window with a view of the Santa Cruz Mountains behind him. What a waste. He had this amazing office and spent very little time in it, while she and the marketing team had toiled away fifty-plus hours a week on the side of the building that overlooked the parking lot.
“Good morning,” Justin called out as Brooke entered.
