The first staff meeting after the acquisition was critical.
Later meetings would be important, too. Jericho’s appointment with the finance board would be delicate, and he would need to discern exactly how bad Newcastle Golf Club’s finances were. He already knew they were bad. Bouncing paychecks and empty accounts told him that the club was operating deeply in the red.
But poor indicators like that meant that his initial valuation of the club would be lower than he’d anticipated.
They meant it would be easier for him to win the bet.
But first, he had to get through the first meeting.
The chair of the finance committee, Bob Russo, prattled on about what a good investment Jericho had made in the club and how excited he and the other members would be to turn the club from an amateur-led nonprofit to a professional business venture.
In Jericho’s experience, most non-profit organizations weren’t excited at all to be purchased by venture capitalists. Most were outright defiant, and that’s why the first meeting after the acquisition was so important.
Jericho stood on the rear patio of the clubhouse, fieldstone slabs under his brown dress shoes. The sunlight was bright that April morning, warming the air despite the spring breeze blowing the daffodils and tulips in the flowerbeds around the clubhouse.
Over by the asphalt cart path, movement caught his eye.
When he glanced over, the head pro Kowalski was standing next to Tiffany Jones as she gaped at him. Her gorgeous dark eyes were wide open, and her plush lips that he had wanted to run his thumb over and then kiss the day before formed a perfect circle.
That brought dirty ideas into his head, but he smiled at her before he looked away. If he’d kept looking at the round, soft opening her lips made, he would’ve embarrassed the hell out of himself in front of the crowd of members and staff of Newcastle Golf Club. At least he was wearing underwear that day, unlike the day before when he’d thought he was going to pitch a tent every time Tiffany sauntered ahead of him while she showed him around the club.
He tapped the microphone to test it. Muffled beats thumped from the speakers hanging on the edge of the roof of the clubhouse.
Time to get on with it.
“Hello, Newcastle Golf Club!” Jericho said. His deep voice rolled over the crowd, and he smiled at them.
A few people smiled back. That was more than he’d hoped for.
“My name is Jericho Parr, and I represent Last Chance, Inc., a venture capital firm located over in Stamford. I’m pleased to announce our new partnership with NGC.”
Some of their stares were outright hostile, which again, Jericho had expected. If you didn’t make a few people mad, you were failing as a venture capitalist. The trick was not to piss everybody off and decimate the business.
Jericho continued speaking. “I’m going to be personally working to ensure the success and future of Newcastle Golf Club.”
He caught Tiffany Jones’s gaze with his again, and the sunlight shining off her high cheekbones and elfin chin was beautiful.
He said, “You’re going to be seeing a lot of me around here.”