It was the third day’s morning of Hina’s reign of Biaz Group and we were in the executive meeting room with Hina at the head of the table. Closest to her on the right side sat Tolo, and the left side chair opposite of Tolo was occupied by Mr. Yan, the longest-serving Managing Director of Biaz Group. The second pair of seats on the left and right were filled with Dr. Chide the CTO and Mr. Koh the CFO. Next to the CTO sat Dr. Kiesh the head of the R&D department we met the day before. These five were the ones that Hina met and knew already, and the rest that filled the room were the ones that Hina is yet to acquaint herself with, such as Mr. Vanher the Chief Business Development Manager, Mr. Hone the Chief Production Manager, and so on. As for me, I was standing two steps to the right and two steps behind Hina just as I’ve always done with Mr. Biaz.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming and for those that I haven’t met before, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Hina and I have recently been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of Biaz Group. I look forward to working with everyone here and hope we can continue the success of Biaz Group”

A little round of applause, and then Hina nodded to Tolo on her right and Tolo rose from his seat to speak.

“Right, gentlemen. Although this is only the first time we’ve had the chance to formally greet our new CEO, you all know that we are not here just to say hello. Let’s get started. Poos, please proceed”

That from Tolo came off as a bit quick and terse. Hmm, anyways.

“Thank you, Mr. Biaz. I have already given a general briefing to Ms. Biaz about the next major project to be announced in four weeks' time - the Unmanned Fast Attack Craft. We have the heads of most departments here, so we will use this opportunity to brief Ms. Biaz with your perspectives on this project from your respective field. Could Mr. Vanher start first please, as the Chief Business Development Manager?”

“Right. Ms. Biaz, I am Vanher from the Business Development department. The Unmanned Fast Attack Craft is a weapons platform that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted and has kept on its ten-year plan for a while now. The budget for it has passed through the parliament last autumn and now the program is ready to be announced shortly”.

Vanher was a rather old and heavy man, so he took a little pause to catch his breath here.

“As an island nation, maintaining the Naval superiority over the neighbouring countries is of paramount importance. In recent years, there has been a Naval arms race between our three neighbours due to the disputes over the ownership of islands that sit between their borders. While we are not involved in such dispute directly, we are seeing an increasing presence of their Navy forces close to our sea”

Vanher gave a look at Hina at this point to see if she was still following well. Hina appeared attentive and nodded for Vanher to continue.

“Unmanned Fast Attack Craft, UFAC, is what the Joint Chiefs of Staff considers as an optimal solution to counter these threats. We cannot match the scale of the others’ Naval forces by any normal means, but we can operate a greater number of unmanned vessels than, well, manned vessels. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS wants to see the prototype of this boat in three years' time, immediately to be followed by mass production should the development be successful. The total number of UFAC the JCS wants to have within five years is 50, with the aim of doubling this number in ten years”

Mr. Koh the CFO took over from here.

“Just to give you an idea of the scale of this program. The budget for the R&D of the prototype is 2.7 billion dollars. The cost of a single boat, once complete, is estimated to be at least 30 million dollars each. So 50 boats in five years will be 1.5 billion dollars, and 100 boats for 10 years will be 3 billion dollars. So all in all, putting the R&D and acquisition budget together, we are looking at close to 6 billion dollars”

Hina threw a quick glance at me, and I knew she was thinking something along the line of “hey that’s a lot of money, but my family’s wealth is many times more than that. Is 6 billion dollars that big a deal for Biaz Group?”

“But this project is worth more than 6 billion dollars for us”, Tolo interjected as if he read Hina’s thoughts too.

“Mr. Chide, please explain”

“Yes, Mr. Biaz. From a technological point of view, this will be relatively new territory for us, and the best chance for us to secure a budget that we can invest into strengthening our competence in the field of unmanned operation technology. Since KAK won the project for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, neither we nor Wanda have invested in this field and KAK has become a runaway leader in autonomous systems technology. For now, we can happily focus on the other areas we have traditionally been strong at, but down the road, there is a danger that KAK becomes the defacto leader in the weapons platform design and we just end up as a supplier of sub-components and consumables”

This was something I already went over with Hina two days ago so she should have a good idea of what’s going on now.

“In other words, winning this program will not only mean a six billion dollar project, but it will also allow us to get into myriads of other platform business. Over the long term, the potential value of winning this project will be tens of billions of dollars”, Vanher concluded for Dr. Chide.

“Right. Thank you everyone”, Hina appreciatively nodded her head.

“Ms. Biaz - ”, the way Tolo said Ms. Biaz sounded so intentional that it came across as somewhat sarcastic, “on the flip side, this means that failing to win this project could be a start of a decline in Biaz Groups’ position in the Defence Industry. The loss will not be just unrealised profit, but the status of the company”

“Let me tell you something”, Mr. Yan, who has been sitting quietly next to Hina, finally spoke.

“It’s a make-or-break situation we have here. Now that we’ve come to this stage I can say it to you all - the whole idea of developing and acquiring UFAC was actually an idea Mr. Biaz planted on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was something he felt our country needed, but of course, also, what he saw as essential for the future of Biaz group. We have to win this contract”

“I understand. We will not fail”

Hina stated with genuine confidence and determination, but the rest of the room didn’t seem convinced. It’s like a third-choice goalkeeper talking big that his team will win in the final and lift the trophy - sure, it could happen, but you won’t be the one to take credit for it when the team wins. When you get your medal, just know that your team carried you to that podium.

However, there was a major difference for Hina. A third-choice goalkeeper would not be blamed for the team losing the final, but Hina would be blamed for it. And when she gets blamed for a big failure, she won’t have the strong support to fall back on to recover and earn the second chance to bounce back. And when Hina loses the grip on her position, I knew that my career will be over too.