Angela adjusted her coat, a faint smile playing on her lips. "Then let’s make sure we're the former. Goodnight, gentlemen. Jennifer, see you at dawn."
Jennifer Welcher didn't look like a disruptor. Clad in a sharp, slate-grey blazer with her hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun, she looked like the auditor she had once been. But Jennifer had spent the last five years dismantling and rebuilding some of the most inefficient logistics chains in Europe. She didn't see people; she saw nodes and flow rates. Angela Lautenschläger, Ole Hansen, Jennifer Wel...
"Which is why Jennifer is here," Angela replied, nodding toward the woman sitting opposite Ole. Angela adjusted her coat, a faint smile playing on her lips
Angela stood up and walked to the window, watching the cargo ships ghosting through the fog of the harbor. "They see what we show them. This isn't just another port expansion. It’s a blueprint for the next century. Ole, you handle the supply side. Ensure our energy partners are locked in for the decade, not the fiscal year. Jennifer, I want you on the ground in Cuxhaven by Monday. Talk to the foremen. Show them the retraining modules. Don’t just tell them their jobs are safe—prove it." Jennifer, see you at dawn
"The infrastructure is sound, Angela," Ole said, his voice a low gravelly rumble. "But the human element? That’s where the cracks always start."
Jennifer slid a tablet across the table. "I’ve mapped the integration. If we move now, we bypass the regulatory bottleneck in the North Sea. But Ole is right about the human element. The local unions are wary. They see the Lautenschläger name and they see 'automation.' They don’t see 'sustainability.'"
As they walked out into the cool, damp night, Ole paused to light a cigar, the match flare illuminating his grin. "You realize we're either going to save the industry or be the most expensive failure in German history, right?"