Chapter 5

It did not take Myra very long to ‘settle in’. Her brother was being cared for 7/24 in Miami until a site was decided upon in Italy. A large suite was selected in the Medici Palace for Myra. Office space in London was secured for a staff of up to fifty, but only twenty would start now and arrangements had been made for her to use the Yachts in Naples and Rome whenever she wanted. The ‘family’ planes, houses and several security organizations were soon adding Myra to the list of ‘family’ members. It had been a ‘shout’ for her and soon, Michael, her brother was moved to the Rome site.

In that first month I don’t think a day passed that I did not get a call or e-mail or both from Myra thanking me. That finally stopped, I now wondered why. I soon found out. It seemed that Myra was now the ‘Darling’ of the entire organization. Each had contacted her, sent detailed plans and schedules for her to visit each location. If she only spent 3 months at each, in 12 years she would see most. Ha!

I got a call from a weeping Myra. “James! What am I to do?”

I asked just one question, two actually. “How many staff were there in your old job and How many have you hired in London?”

I already knew the answer, no one was hired yet, she was trying to do everything herself.

“Ahh, James, well, none yet, I ... I “ then more crying?

“M. we are as much as fault as you. This is all new to us. Let’s start with a dozen or two people in London, let each take care of 3 or 4 sites, and reports summarized each night. Add 2 more shifts, one new office in Berlin or Tokyo, One more in LA or D.C. By next year you need to have 180-220 people trained, 2 shifts in 3 or 4 sites going and 7/24 coverage. Got it girl? We have over 35,000 ops type in place now and more on the way. It will take a bit to get started.”

I shrugged then decided to break the news to her. “Love, need to explain some thing to you. First there are less than 50 people in this organization that you need to speak with. All but 12 of which are looking to you for orders. Second the rest are folks you need to listen to but they will also listen to you. The 36 or so sites that you got requests to visit are just that, request, tell them to ‘go to hell’ or ignore them. There are about 8 places you will need to visit, 4 or so for a few months each, all the rest your people should just handle the details. All 36 sites will be sending you contact details and provide 4 or 5 ‘liaison’ people. I need you to hire a ‘core’ team by next week, then have that team each hire a dozen by next month. Tell them the salary is $150-200,000 for each hire. Theirs $200-250,000. Third, I made a mistake, I cannot pay you $250,000 a year, it just needs to change, everything else is fine though.”

“Oh James, I don’t care, I just want Michael to be happy and taken care of, I’ll agree to any cut you make. Without all this I don’t know what I would ever do.”

“M, I don’t think you understand! If you pay your core staff $250,000 a year you, my dear need to make $750-900,000 plus bonuses. I’m not cutting your salary, I need to increase it, Madame President. Now get cracking, bring a list everyday to get vetted and get 1 or 2 PA’s for a dozen cities and 2 staff each for them, details to you on the way. Your budget is $600 Million this year. Conference call on Friday then I’ll see you in Rome for dinner Saturday.”

It took another ‘heart to heart’, then a ‘face to face’ to make Myra begin to give orders rather than wait to get them. We all knew that though and the changes she made ended up surprising everyone. More than 760 people were added to her centralized staff approach, they were already working somewhere in the organization, just no one knew about them. By the end of the summer, 2,300 new staff were identified, all provided leadership, training and contacted daily by ‘core’ managers and supervisors. We were starting to become centralized and standardized, for the first time there was a true ‘chain of command’. Within a year, secure computers networks identified various options available for each operation. That would prove to be something that would let us very soon spread across the globe in a professional fashion.