Chapter 7 – The new CEO
As they were walking in the elevator's direction again, Aniya picked up her phone to check why it was buzzing with new messages while she was in the meeting. When she saw all the photos her father sent, she muffled laughter, “Pfft! My father had some fun firing that annoying man! It’s better if you get yourself prepared, Miss Meredith, because I doubt our previous company attorney will go out peacefully. For sure, he will be at the meeting with the Board of Directors, seeking refuge and support from his friends there.”
“Well, considering your shares, there is nothing he or the members of the Board can do against you. I still need to advise you not to decide anything against them right off the bat. Let them talk and then decide. As you said, you will need all the help you can get, and they have been at the head of this company for quite some time, and that means that they, more than anyone else, know the state of this company.”
While entering the elevator, Aniya answered, “They don’t know more than my mother because she is the real CEO of this company. My father only serves as a suitable spokesperson. The problem is when he goes against her recommendations and causes a mess, like two years ago.”
As the elevator went up to the fifteenth floor, Meredith Lion spoke, visibly surprised, “I... didn’t know that! I think I have heard no one mentioning such a thing!”
“It was done on purpose, considering how our rivals acted when my mother was at the head of this company. She was the one to devise that plan of working from the shadows. Thanks to her, this company has been the leader of the market for some years, and my father is very good at calling attention to himself with his polemic declarations and interviews.”
“Don’t you fear your rivals may use your youth and lack of experience against you?”
Aniya grinned. “Oh, I am counting on that, Miss Meredith. That’s why my faithful and hard-working assistant here has a huge list of people that I want to change positions and responsibilities, all according to my plan to surround myself with the best of the best. She even found a trainee that is working in our photocopies department who has a master’s degree in advertising and was placed in the wrong department because she refused to comply with the sexual harassment of a certain nephew of a member of the Board who is, until this moment, one of the supervisors of our marketing department. It seems she was not the only one that was misplaced or hidden somewhere, and many of them my father was never told about, or couldn’t do much, considering how his hands were tied.”
Meredith Lion noticed how Aniya looked agitated when she talked about victims of sexual harassment and hid a smile when she saw her tapping her chest and taking slow, deep breaths to calm down.
The elevator stopped and Aniya was the first to step out, walking at her usual high speed straight towards the meeting room on the left side of the corridor. Anna Kent rushed to get past her and opened the door for her, letting her storm into the meeting room like a hurricane.
Without even slowing down, in a continuous movement, Aniya took off her jacket and gave it to Anna, sitting at the top of the long oval table with her father on her right side, disguisedly glancing at the other people already seated.
Aniya grabbed the suitcase that her assistant gave her and spoke without even lifting her head, while Meredith Lion sat on her left, gathering a few whispers because everyone recognised her. “Good morning, gentlemen. Is everyone present or do we need to wait for someone else?”
An older man with a long beard spoke with a grin. “Everyone has been here for quite some time, Aniya. Unlike you, we are used to starting our day early.”
“Miss! Miss Aniya!”
The bearded man frowned, “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me loud and clear, Mister Smith. You should address me as ‘Miss Aniya’, or don’t even address me if you can’t be polite. So, if everyone is here, first I want to ask why Mister Hadrian is looking at me from his seat, considering that my father fired him moments ago.”
Mister Smith answered, almost spitting in anger, “Hadrian is here because he is this company’s attorney! Your father should know better. He can’t fire anyone without our approval!”
Aniya signalled her assistant, who immediately rushed around the table, placing a file in front of each of the ten members of the Board of Directors. As they were all frowning and looking at the file, Aniya explained, “My father followed my instructions. Mister Hadrian is no longer working here, and our new attorney is Miss Meredith Lion. Now, before any of you open your mouth to annoy me and receive an invitation to follow Mister Hadrian into the unemployed list, I suggest everyone look at the file that Anna just delivered.”
While they were glancing at the documents, Aniya took a sip from the water bottle that was on the table. As more and more voices rose to ask for more explanations, unable to believe what they were reading, Aniya gave a light nod to her left, and Meredith Lion spoke, “As you can read in those files, Miss Aniya now holds fifty-five percent of this company. All those documents were already validated in all the proper places, as you can see by the stamps on the procurations. It would be better and faster if you all understood the true meaning of those procurations and what they imply.”
Mister Smith threw the file on the table and said, “I don’t accept this! I won’t let a mere child take over my company!”
Aniya slapped the table hard, and everyone looked at her. She stood up and spoke in a low, cold voice, “Your company? Your company? You have a miserable share of this company that my parents built from scratch! You are just an investor that for far too long tied the hands of my father and even dared to slip in your nephew, a disgusting man who can’t keep his hands in his pockets! A pervert that has quite the reputation for harassing every woman that works here! He will be the second to be fired, and if you don’t mind your tone, you will be the third! It’s probably better if I warn you all. If any of you have a problem with seeing me seated here or have any funny idea of replacing me, you know where the exit is! As for the ones that wish to bet on me and follow my lead on a new and very profitable era, you are more than welcome to stay, because I don’t mind following your advice, considering how long you are a member of this Board!”
While Mister Smith was grabbing his briefcase, followed by almost half of the Board of Directors and the angry attorney, one middle-aged man asked, “Miss Aniya, I am sorry for asking this, but why do you think you are fit for this position? Because you are very young, and being the CEO of such a big company like this one is not easy! You will have to deal with all sorts of business, meetings, contracts...”
“I am aware of that fact, but many of you don’t know that I have a Master’s degree in Finance and another in Accounting. To top that off, my mother is the real CEO, and she has been in charge of this company since its creation. My father is just a useful distraction. He also learned a lot while doing his job, but the brain behind him is indeed my mother, and she has been tutoring me and preparing me for this position since I learned how to talk.”
Mister Smith stopped in the middle of his walk to the door and shouted before leaving, followed by three other members of the Board and a furious attorney, “Lies! All lies! As if a woman could ever be able to oversee a company like this! You will hear from my lawyers!”
Aniya flicked her hair and waved at them. “Good luck with that! Goodbye, have a safe voyage!”
She then frowned at her hand. “Oh, shoot! I bent my ring when I slapped the table!”
As she was pressing the ring with her other hand, she asked, “Miss Meredith, do you think I can send the bill for the repair of this ring to that annoying old man, considering he was the one that made me angry to the point where I damaged the precious ring my mother gave me on my last birthday?”
“I don’t think we have any legal precedents to complain about such a thing, actually.”
The other members of the Board disguised their smiles, and after a few seconds, one of them asked, “Miss Aniya, may I ask what your immediate plans are for this company? And also, long-term plans?”
Aniya’s assistant quickly placed in front of each person at the table a paper with a list, while Aniya explained, “First point, termination of any kind of contract with the people on that list. They are lazy, unfit for the job they were assigned, and a few perverts, with several accusations of sexual harassment against the women and some men working here. You may know some of those names because they are either your sons, nephews, or sons of one of your friends. Second, an agreement has already been signed with representatives of the Calvin Klein group to use some of our products in their collection that will launch next week. Their advertisement campaign will feature their new underwear and lingerie collections with the models using our latest model of smart bracelets that my team developed and designed.”
Aniya waited a few seconds to let the shock of the names on the firing list be absorbed and replaced by the juicy news, before continuing, “As for future plans, I want to use the contacts I gathered in my side job as an influencer for future business deals. If I am not mistaken, Dior will be the next to offer me a deal, and that will give me an opportunity to slide our new model of smartphone into their campaign as well. Of course, we will also comply on our end by using Calvin Klein and Dior products and some of their famous male and female models to advertise for us.”
Silence. Absolute silence. Then, one member of the Board of Directors asked with a trembling voice, “Miss Aniya... by your team, do you mean that group of misfits you gathered in the ‘New Trends’ department? A department that for the last ten months has shown no kind of progress? Neither you ever presented us with any kind of explanation for the creation of that department?”
“Yes. They were working, no time to make pretty graphics or PowerPoint presentations for you to see. I also wanted to keep their work as secretive as I could, so that no other department messed with them, and to use their achievements as a selling point to prove to you I know what I am doing. Like I just did.”
The rest of the morning was just discussions about how to better and faster achieve Aniya’s goals, with all of them almost forgetting about the people on the firing list.
As the meeting ended and everyone was leaving, still happily discussing their own ideas and congratulating Aniya on their exit, Dan Rossi smiled and turned to Aniya. “Well, that went rather well! I suppose I have nothing to do now, so I would better find myself a new hobby.”
“You can still use my old office because I think your exotic character and polemic speeches will be needed someday. As for a hobby, you always complain about not having enough free time for your long-time love, tuna fishing.”
Dan Rossi tapped the table as he got up. “Great idea! I will take the afternoon off, boss! We will meet at home!”
As he stormed out of the room, Aniya was slowly shaking her head with a smile. Meredith Lion was putting her papers inside the briefcase when Anna got a call. She frowned and faced Aniya while covering the microphone. “Miss Aniya, a man called Nick is at the reception, saying that you are waiting for him. Do you know him?”
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