Chapter 60
The bell of St. Martin struck and echoed across the small town of Chur, in the eastern part of Switzerland. Where the terracotta roofs of each of the pretty houses and buildings were covered in thick layer of snow, reminding Jennie of a miniature Christmas village that her Dad used to set up under the Christmas tree when she was a kid, for her entertainment. A battery-motored red train would go round and round around it and tiny villagers in thick clothes with jolly faces were scattered around the tiny village.
Chur was a quintessence of that Christmas village and perhaps it was of the reasons why she decided to spend the holidays in this charming five thousand year-old town and Switzerland's oldest city, after she saw a postcard-worthy photo of the town square with its quaint houses on a winter time, when she was randomly browsing through the Web while looking for a destination. And indeed, it was perfect that she decided to stay there until her vacation is over, instead of jumping on the next train after exploring the old town.
Jennie decided to take a two-week break after the annual company Christmas party celebration that she attended before she boarded the jet and after a gruelling months of meetings and planning for the opening of the Kim Group Hotel chain – the newest venture of the Kim Group and one of her major projects – which they timed perfectly before the start of the holidays to accommodate the surge of tourists wanting to spend their Christmas in Seoul. One column described it as the 'expansion of the hegemony of the Kim Group of Companies, signalling another triumph that Miss Jennie Kim, President and CEO, has won yet again after today's remarkable milestone of South Korea's biggest conglomerate'.
Jennie found that article ridiculous, however, no matter how much she tried to convince herself that it was nothing but praises for her and her brand of leadership, when the writer described her success as 'a stroke of brilliance'.
A stroke of brilliance? No one in their right mind would dare call a milestone 'a stroke of brilliance' after she, as the sitting president and chairwoman, had been setting milestones after milestones for the company, carving her own legacy by making the Kim Group a global-tier with foreign investors marching on the entrance, desperately seeking for her audience, for partnership. In fact, she had just closed an important deal in Paris for a clothing line, which she partnered with some of the brilliant young minds of the Kim clan who knew a great deal about the fashion industry and whose innovative ideas she trusted. It was part of her strategy as President and CEO – to not isolate the young minds by inviting them to discuss ideas and let them partake in the business. Jennie wanted to end the conventional approach of the conglomerate through inviting the modernists to help her design a more contemporary method which would be beneficial for the long-term goal of the Kim Group, while infusing the orthodox ideas that the brilliant minds of the older Kims would suggest her. A win-win solution.
Hence, she saw the article, and it was hard not to take it personally, an insult to her three years of being President and CEO. Even the boards and the shareholders who had shown shameless reluctance to her leadership at first were now convinced that she was the right successor to lead them. She did that in three years and the writer decided to reduce all her hardwork to 'a stroke of brilliance'? The audacity! But while she was personally outraged by it, Jisoo thought it was an eye-opener.
"I agree. It somehow opened my eyes that the world is made up jealous old men who hate young, successful women to thrive on her chosen field and so they would try to smear the woman's reputation by cajoling her ego before destroying it and then expect her to laugh at his joke," Jennie told Jisoo, when the latter dropped by her office when that article was released and Jennie wasn't particularly delighted about it.
"I hate that guy and I don't agree with most of the things that he wrote about you, to be honest. But what I meant to say when I said that his article was an eye-opener, was that it should open your eyes to the idea of taking a break," said Jisoo.
