Our first CEO

TIC seeks, and will settle only for:-

• a calm, sensible, mature, thoughtful, self-contained, self-possessed, self-effacing, level-headed, unaffected, unpretentious, prudent, cultured, civilised, loyal, grounded, rigorous, relentless, rational, knowledgeable, honorable type who thinks before he speaks and with whom one can have, and wants to have, and looks forward to having, a genuine conversation. He is consistent. He inspires confidence, not trepidation. He is interesting. He gets things done properly, timeously, efficiently, economically, sensibly and sustainably. He will not treat TIC as his plaything or retirement fund and run it into the ground. He is not second-rate. He is disgusted by 21st-century stupidity and incompetence, and repelled by the culture of the 'pitch', 'projections' and 'teams'. He despises sycophants, posers, fast-talkers and phoneys. He has a mind and he speaks it

• a seasoned successful multimedia industry insider. He intimately knows conventional, derivative, emulative, sensible, successful, stable, steady, sustainable global multimedia. He knows exactly what to do. He will not fool around with other people's time or money. He is stunned by elementary moral, intellectual, commercial and common-sense mistakes made by other CEOs, especially concerning fantasy projections, delusional revenue, insane expenditure and obsolete business models

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• he instinctively 'gets' TIC holistically. He is in sympathy with TIC's ambit, aspirations and ambitions. He is genuinely attuned to TIC's subjectmatter, products, platforms, sources, audiences, markets and potential. He needs no convincing or persuading that TIC is viable, nor educating in how to get it and keep it off the ground

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• he has no prior or current relevant association with any failed multimedia (or other) business, or with over-promising, over-raising, over-spending, over-paying, over-hiring, belated 'cost cutting' (of everything but his own package), or with mass layoffs (don't forget the sunglasses) of talentless folks who should never have been hired in the first place (and then the 'focus', 'our core values', the 'who we are', etc.)

What business in its right mind would not insist on someone like this? How could it justify hiring anyone else? ('Of course, my dear Szrabe, but where is he? Where exactly would one look? Perhaps…')