Learning the ropes and networking

"Mr. Ray, or is it Mr. Zhen Chen?" Er Ge's secretary ask

"Ray please" I responded and smile.

"Be careful with the smile of yours - melts young girls heart, thank good ness I'm married" she teased back

"Hahah my brother relies on you a lot i heard, you must be such an important person" I praised

"To sort out his schedule you mean, yes - come let me show you around"

Li Zing, my brother's secretary walked me around to introduce me to the people around, it just feel awkward the eyes that follows, My room feels spacious - my brother knows me well, the room faces the park below with the lake and there were paintings hung on the wall.

"Your brother insisted we have a piano placed at the corner of your room, we've renovated the place so you can have your private sound proofed area at that corner pointing to frosted glass door at the end of the room, I'll walk you there"

Er Ge must be consciously trying to get me back on to my work while helping him. I walked in to the room. Nicely decorated, white sofa with a vase and fresh flowers by the window like how i normally like it. Hmmm even my old painting is hung up on the wall.

"Shall I leave you? Ms Cheng, your secretary will be here shortly. You have a few function this afternoon with your brother and there's a dinner with the holding company shareholder with your dad and your two brothers"

"Thanks Li Zing can you get me the company's financial year performance report and investor reports please, I'd like to get my hands around the business"

Li Zing raised her eye brow "Sure it's actually on the shelf next to your table...hmm your brother did say you would dive into the financial details first thing"

"Thanks that's all, please go ahead" I smile and walk straight to the desk

"uhhmm Ray, some of the management team have actually asked me to schedule sometime with you, they wanted to catch you knowing you are coming on board"

"Tomorrow, I'll go through the details first" I replied

It was always my habit to get into the financial details - I guess that runs in the family, the serious work ethic of wanting to know upfront how's the company performing, that will help me get my hands around how well we are doing and strategise our expansion plans accordingly. Browsing quickly at the financial statement and investment portfolios i spent a good 2 hours to consume the stacks of reports. In that 2 hour I've pretty much digested our company's performance Cost to Income Ratio seems high. We need more revenue push and expenses control and that seems to come from our marketing splurge on a few entertainment aspect. Our portfolios are pretty stable and I realised we have also expanded our investments to selected countries and collaboration with some international Artist to co-promote their work which we get incentives from.

I stretched my hands and my neck as the reading gets into me. I walked over to the window and pull the blinds to look out. Blue skies with warm sun light.

"Hello Mr Ray, your dad and brother is waiting for you at his room" Ms Cheng said as I nodded and settled with introduction with Ms Cheng

"Hi Pa, Er Ge....you are early."

"Come Zhen - we have a proposal to get through we have 30 mins and we have to move to the meetings"

And so the day went by until dinner. I guess I picked up some of these traits through the generations - workaholic as they call it seems to run in the family.

We had many intensive discussions on a proposition for funding for digital entertainment and gamification working with platform providers. And so I had to share my fair bit of knowledge why gamification can be used as a tool to drive traffic. While my dad was addressing the middle age and elderly segment needs and proposition - I was creating awareness with what my segment would do and so we move on to the student, under graduates, young working adults and each segment would have their on needs and wants. The ability to tailor the need for each segment serve as critical point on how we will market some of these ideas.

"Xin Lao Pan, how are you?" My dad greeted an old acquaintance of his over dinner. We were seated together with some family run business partners that came from Singapore and Korea. It's a amazing how many men were on the table, there goes inclusion and diversity as the hot topic for getting more female onto senior management roles in organisation. "Zhen Lao Pan, wow it's been ages how have you been? Your sons?" And my dad proudly shows off. "Hi I'm Keith and this is Ray younger brother" I bowed as my brother did

"Wow Keith you grew so much I last saw your dad 10 - 15 years back when you were still running around. The 3 of you including Rain" I definitely don't have any recollection of and uncle Xin for sure. Well i was probably still in primary school i suppose.

"And this is Rue Jun, we nodded his son....probably about my age i suppose"

And the night went on as we sat in to witness some presentation by a few corporates company and neighbouring country companies providing a view to the latest multimedia technology on 5G collaboration theme the "beyond imagination" Those snippets of video clips on possible scenarios definitely light up my thinking hat on a few things that we could possibility explore as they presented to the shareholders and our investors

"So you are into all these?" Rue Jun asked seated next to me

"Ahh well sort of, I'm more musically inclined but I'm helping my dad and brother out for now family business" i cut it short not wanting to explain more

"I see, I'm into music too what do you play? I usually jam with my buddies at my home studio...but dad wants me to also start sorting out my life and join him"

Ahh okay same wave length so I'm not the only one i thought and I smile back "I know what you are saying", sounding completely empathetic towards his situation but now this conversation pricked my curiosity as my dad and brother continue entertaining and chit chatting with the others

"So what do you jam with? electric guitar?" I asked curiously

"Yup - I've got my own band, electric guitar, drum anything noisy i have it and you?"

"Mmmn I'm into piano, violin, guitar ...I play in the orchestra at times... i compose and write my songs" I swallowed as I said it

"Wow that's the civilised path, my mum and dad gave me an ultimatum to shift and throw out my studio if I'm not commercialising any of these noisy sound that i make, usually at night" he grinned as he said

"Haha haha" and we chuckled and laugh over it. "I know what you mean but sometimes you just want to play for fun and we do play at selected venues for charitable event" He explained

"So the interesting part is coming out" I responded back. I wanted to share that i can connect him over to my side business for events but decided not to instead

Come by my place if you want to he offered. "We could try out some noisy jamming together - i mean you can't drag your piano with you but you can take your guitar along"

"Sure" and we exchange contacts soon after