Chapter 90 - Boardroom Drama

Nine thirty in the morning and already Carol was exhausted. The meeting didn't go too well and the level of unprofessionalism was simply too much when Collins finally snapped and let loose a whole string of interesting insults.

- Rewind back to 9.01 a.m -

Wilmer walked into the meeting room after having a cup of coffee in his office. He decided that it was no longer necessary to bring up the issue of their contender and instigator for the leak of confidential company information after the call from Elfie.

The CEo took some time to collect his thoughts and ready for the meeting when his secretary entered the room.

"Sir, the meeting is about to start. Should I prepare the things you texted me about last night?"

Wilmer smiled at Carol. As usual, she was efficient about everything.

"There are some changes to the plan. I'd like to start the meeting agenda with an announcement. Call in the security, we don't need the spy to feed more information about our second phase of the project. There's no reason to continue keeping him. However, you can distribute the minutes and meeting agenda as per usual. That will give him enough reason to lead us to the hive."

Carol bowed and left to distribute the printed notes. The pretty secretary entered the meeting room full of smiles and offered everyone a cup of coffee, something she didn't often do. Casia Lee, the head of human resources and admin, was surprised to see the unusual behavior.

"Something good happened during the weekend?" she asked and Carol grinned.

"Something like that," she replied and Cody rolled his eyes with a snort.

"Leave it to the girls to play. Where is Wilmer? He's late."

Nobody paid the head of General Operations and heed. They were too used to Collins' uselessness to care. If anything, they were more curious about the reason for Carol's smiles. It didn't seem like personal news because the lady was good at separating work and personal life matters. While it was common knowledge that Carol was a proud member of the LGBT society, nobody bothered her for it except for Cody. Carol was a very efficient secretary and working with her made things a lot simpler. before Mrs Wilde introduced Carol to the company, they would often find Wilmer buried under heaps of paperwork with an aura of death surrounding him.

While waiting for Wilmer to make his entrance, the directors flipped through the meeting minutes that Carol distributed. The secretary watched for reactions while she served coffee and took note of Collins' smirk. Now that the line was cast, all the had to do was wait for the bigger fish to bite after Collins took the bait.

The door opened and Wilmer entered the room confidently.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long, the Monday blues are getting to me despite the great weekend. I heard that you went to the beach on Saturday, Ken. How was it? You have quite the tan there."

There was a round of good-natured chuckle and a short recount of his trip by Kenneth Butterworth the Sales Director.

"I see that you've done quite the reshuffling to our projects based on the meeting agenda notes," Max Morgans, the head of Research & Developments commented.

Wilmer nodded. "Indeed. It was after long consideration and discussion that I decided to revise the plans a little."

Cody rolled his eyes. "What's the point of having monthly meetings if finalised plans are simply going to be revised on a whim like this?"

Robert Wang, the Business Consultant, turned to the fat man and clicked his tongue. "For a General Operations Director, you seem to be forgetting that if it weren't for your inability to meet the last deadline we wouldn't need to have any revisions?"

Not missing a beat, Tracy Mcgardens the Chief Financial Officer decided to give a verbal report of last quarter's figures.

"I recall that due to the mismanagement and poor execution of the first phase, Wilde Inc. had to bear a loss of 4.7billion in forecasted sales."

Cody could not refute when Kenneth confirmed the numbers.

"Please, it's only a Monday and the meeting hasn't started. Let's hear Wilmer out, surely there is a reason for such a change," Shin Yamamoto, the director of Legal Affairs spoke out.

The room quieted down again and everyone turned to Wilmer who smiled serenely. Jessica Miller, the head of Marketing and Public Relations had a feeling that she'd seen this before. A sense of dejavu came over her and the woman wondered if something big was going to happen today.

Casia Lee gave Jeffery Lam, the Chief Information Officer, a look and they smirked in sync. The email had been scheduled for a company wide announcement and they were simply waiting for Wilmer to make his move. 

"Thank you Shin," Wilmer nodded in the Japanese man's direction. "I believe you're all wondering why I decided to introduce such a drastic change without consulting anyone about it. The truth is, the company has been infected with a slow-spreading poison that we've been unable to counter until very recently. As for what this is about, Carol if you would please..."

The efficient secretary dimmed the lights and started the projector. Cody who was sipping on his coffee comfortably in his chair nearly spat the beverage out when he saw his own face in a video. Although nobody could see who he was talking to, it didn't really matter. The General Operations director knew exactly what this was about and felt cold sweat forming underneath his armpits. he turned green with unease when Carol hit the play button.

"Do you have it?" Cody in the video asked.

The unknown man with his back facing the hidden camera passed Cody a thick envelope that the corrupt director snatched quickly with his grubby hands. The room was full of gasps when they saw how Cody counted the money and handed over a blank envelope, no doubt containing confidential information about the company's projects.

The video ended and another incriminating evidence appeared. This was the financial records that Tracy and Jefferey worked hard to recover.

"As you can see, ladies and gentlemen... I think there is no need for words any longer. Shin and Casia, I will leave the rest to you. Xavier and Gavin, please follow me to the office. We will be discussing about the project duty segregation for the operational department. Meeting adjourned for today."

Cody was fuming and thoroughly humiliated when nobody paid him any attention.

"Do you really believe that? It's a conspiracy against me!"

Shin adjusted his glasses and calmly called for the security to escort the fuming man out. Casia also calmly passed the stunned director who paled.

"This is an official letter of termination from the company, you have twenty-four hours starting from now to pack all your belongings and leave the premise. Please don't forget to return your access card to IT before you leave, have a good day."

Infuriated at the treatment, Cody yelled and tried to go after Wilmer but the security had already restrained the man who spat viciously.

"You will pay for this Wilmer! Mark my words!"

Carol tuned out to the colourful choice of vocabulary while Wilmer beckoned to Xavier and Gavin to follow him to his office.

The head of Logistics and Director of Production shared a look as they followed the CEO in silence. Some of them had their suspicions about Cody's intentions and questioned how he came to rise to his position but kept their silence. Was this all part of Wilmer's plans? was this why he chose to relocate to Singapore instead of focussing on his business expansion in America?

- Present time -

Carol shut the door behind the three men and Wilmer gestured for them to take a seat. "I'm assuming you have a lot of questions."

Indeed, both men had questions about what just happened. That was clearly a white collar crime to sell company secrets. Surely the company should be pressing charges against Cody instead of simply terminating him. Why wasn't Wilmer discussing matters with Shin now? The CEO shouldn't be so relaxed as if he knew this was going to happen.

Then it dawned on Xavier Park, the Head of Logistics. Wilmer knew it was going to happen because he was working behind the scenes the whole time to make it happen. Suddenly, the director felt ashamed for not seeing it earlier. It was only six months since he'd been promoted to become the head of international logistics in Wilde Inc. The half-Korean still wasn't very familiar with the political scene of the senior management but he knew that he didn't like Cody whom he described as a slimeball for lack of better vocabulary.

On the other chair, Gavin Foxx was contemplating his next move. As the Director of Production, he knew how badly the project would be affected by the removal of one director even if he was a corrupted person who should be removed from the equation. The Englishman looked through the rearranged schedule of the second phase and lost hope. It simply wouldn't be possible to arrange for such a large scale launch of their newest product. Max wasn't even confident that the prototype was stable enough for it. There were many safety concerns and so far, he had not heard about any plans for marketing from Miller or Butterworth.

"Sorry Wilmer, I just don't think we can proceed with phase two as written on the agenda. We're not going to make it."

The CEO smiled. Gavin was a very capable man who knew his stuff well. He knew that the man would bring the concern up when they were alone and for that very reason, he invited the two directors to his office to discuss further details about the project. Xavier was rather new to the job and was still settling into the role but the CEO knew that if there was anyone he could count on to understand the ground situation best, it would be the half-korean director.

"I know,"he told them honestly and both directors were surprised. "The reason why I called both of you into the office was to further discuss this. The rest of the senior managers would have known by now or guessed that Cody was going to be removed from his position by how things were progressing over the last two months. However, we do not have a concrete solution for the mess Cody made. We don't know exactly how much of the information has been leaked to our competitors and in order to gain an advantage over them, I can only ask for your opinions."

Gavin frowned, feeling stressed. The situation was dire. From the last budget meeting, the loss from that information leak wasn't small. Wilde Inc. was only beginning to get over its financial crisis phase from the previous management's blunder and they've already started to stumble again.

Xavier studied the timeline. The ground situation wasn't doing very well either. Ever since he became the Director of Logistics, the man was finding more and more undiscovered issues that nobody addressed for years. Their main competitor, EZ Express, was gaining an edge over them with their rapid expansion of territories and the half-korean was at his wits end. If only they had better systems in place...

"You look like you have something to say," Wilmer smiled at Xavier who hesitated to speak his mind. Of all the senior board members, he was the newest and the youngest. At only thirty-eight years old, Xavier felt that he wasn't qualified to speak about strategies at all.

Gavin sensed the thoughts going through Xavier's brain and patted him lightly on the shoulder. "You might not know this but Wilmer is a man from humble beginnings. He didn't promote you for political reasons, Wilmer values talent greatly and single-handedly rescued Wilde Inc. from the verge of bankruptcy from twenty years ago. Cody was the only loose end that we didn't manage to cut from back then."

Xavier looked at the CEO in awe and respect. He bowed humbly and spoke in a hushed tone.

"I think that we need to review our systems in great detail if we want to make the deadline a possibility. Recently a fast-growing competitor has appeared. It's a very strong competition in the market when EZ Express offers delivery services that beats our. Their ability to process orders within twenty-four hours is what makes them such a threat. We spend a lot on employing people to work in our offices and call centres to schedule for shipments. Human error is a factor, human speed is a limitation and even if we are able to somehow rush the paperwork, the warehouses cannot cope."

Wilmer nodded in interest. The issue had also been on his mind but with Cody's matter taking priorities, he left this on the back burner.

"Implementing a system would require a long time to train all our staff," the CEO pointed out and Xavier agreed.

"I can train the staff within a month if we have a system in place," Xavier told the CEO confidently.

Wilmer thought about it and turned to Gavin. "Can production cope? I know the prototype is still in its finalising stages..."

Gavin winced. "It's a tight push but we can make it for the second quarter if the materials for production can be secured within a month. It doesn't take a lot to make vacuum flask but the technology to purify and filter water isn't perfect. A complex reverse osmosis microfiltration system in a flask with UV disinfection wasn't so easily replicated for consumer use. If we cannot get the contract to collaborate with the Singapore government for this technology, who knows how long it would take for us to get it right?"

Wilmer pursed his lips. That was another reason why he chose to relocate to Singapore. The Newater plant was an incredible system and if Wilde Inc. can find a way for a collaboration, they would be able to save the company and stabilise their financial standings. The Singapore government was not very successful in spreading the use of this discovery till date and Wilmer saw this as an opportunity that they sorely needed.

"I understand. Once the verdict is settled, I will call for another board meeting about the upcoming phase two of this project. In the meantime, I actually have a favour to ask the both of you. It's a personal favour actually."

Gavin raised a brow. Wilmer wasn't someone who asked for personal favours. Xavier didn't know how to respond and appeared guarded.

"I have three children at home," Wilmer explained and the two men relaxed. They've heard a few things about the interns who were said to be very outstanding.

"Are you going to ask us to babysit them and teach them the ropes of the trade?" Gavin laughed and Wilmer gave a wry grin.

"Something like that. I actually would recommend you to throw him some books and then let him run around with the other employees to figure things out."

Xavier looked unsure. "I heard that they are only ten years old."

Wilmer nodded. "They're not getting any wages from doing this but there is something that Jasper wants to attain so as his unofficial guardian, I will do what I can to lend him a hand. How high he intends to fly after this is up to him. On the other hand, I would need to speak to Jessica about taking in my girls."

Carol was typing an email when she heard laughter from her boss' office. While things were still slightly messy with rumours flying all over the place and Larissa trying to deny any relations with the fired director, the secretary was glad that there would be a rainbow at the end of this awful storm. It was only eleven but Carol decided that she needed a break badly rom the boardroom drama that occurred that morning.

Still, she thought that it was slightly disappointing that Cody couldn't deflect any of the allegations against him. If she knew that it was going to be this simple, she wouldn't have bothered to serve him coffee at all. The anti-climatic ending made her feel somewhat dissatisfied. For the thorn in their side to be removed this easily, Carol still felt uneasy.

Surely things weren't this simple. There was no mistaking it. Their enemy is still at large and invisible while they were in plain sight just waiting for an indication. Carol sighed loudly, the thoughts weighing heavily in her mind.