Chapter 3

When it was my turn to go up, I opened the presentation. The cover page had the title of my growth plan, the one I'd rewritten three times overnight.

Director Finch said quietly, "Aileen Henson, right? Go ahead."

Holding the clicker, I walked them through everything—from market background to user profiles, then to conversion models and viral growth mechanisms—knowing the data on every slide by heart.

When I reached the core strategy for penetrating lower-tier markets, I added three contingency plans, each corresponding to a different scenario: customer acquisition costs running over budget, insufficient user retention, and competitors poaching customers.

When I finished, the room was quiet for a few seconds.

Director Finch spoke first. "Did you come up with all three contingency plans yourself?"

I nodded. "I went through the records of pitfalls from similar projects over the past six months and built the plans to address them specifically."

Another judge asked, "Where did the data come from?"

I answered crisply. "Part of it is from reviews of the company's past projects, part is from third-party industry reports, and part is from three small-scale tests I ran myself. It's all attached in the appendix."

The judges glanced at each other and nodded.

Director Finch made a couple of notes in his notebook, a hint of approval in his tone. "Not bad. Very thorough—much more mature than the version you submitted last time."

I felt a wave of relief, thanked them, and stepped down.

The moment I walked out, I ran into Kirsten Fox. She was clutching her laptop, and when she saw me come out, she went inside looking guilty and nervous.

I leaned against the hallway wall to wait for the results, and I could faintly hear what was going on inside.

Kirsten's voice was a little tense, and she stumbled over her words. She'd only gotten through two slides when Director Finch cut her off. "What's the basis for your customer acquisition cost estimate?"

"It's… it's the industry average," Kirsten's voice trembled.

Director Finch frowned and pressed on. "The average of which industry? Which data range? What's the source of the report?"

Kirsten stammered and couldn't answer.

Then another judge asked her about the logic behind the retention model, and she couldn't explain that either, just repeating, "It's just the standard logic!"

Less than five minutes later, Kirsten came out of the conference room, her eyes red.

I ignored her and turned to head to the break room for a cup of water.

I'd only taken a couple of steps when Clay caught up from behind and grabbed my wrist. "Aileen Henson, you did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"You knew perfectly well she wasn't prepared, yet you buried all those details in your plan just to watch her make a fool of herself, right?"

I shook his hand off and said coldly, "Clay, the defense is a fair competition. If she's unprepared and can't answer the questions, what does that have to do with me?"

"Was I supposed to feed her the answers?"

Clay said angrily, "It's just one promotion spot. You'll have other chances later. This is her first time going for it. Couldn't you have cut her a little slack?"

I laughed, furious. "Last time she copied Abner's plan, you said she was a newbie who didn't know any better."

"This time she tried to copy mine, and instead of blaming her, you're blaming me."

"Clay, what is she to you, that you keep protecting her at every turn like this?"

Clay steeled himself and said, "I just think we're all colleagues—there's no need to be so ruthless about it."

Before I could respond, the conference room door opened, and the HR person came out carrying the scoring sheets.

When they saw the two of us, they paused. "You're both out here? The defense results are in. Aileen Henson, you're in first place so far."

Clay's expression instantly turned even worse.