Long Jinjing and Chen Fei didn’t immediately agree to Iris’ offer. They took a few days before giving her their final decision. But in the end, they accepted her offer to work for her company, Orchidia Beauty.
Iris was the President-CEO and of course, the owner. Alric Bauer was the CPO (Chief Product Officer). His sister, Alona Bauer, was his assistant for now. Iris had plans for Alona in the future.
Then she appointed Chen Fei as the COO and Long Jinjing as the CFO.
It was also around this time when Dom’s sister, Clover Chua, finally arrived from the Philippines. She graduated a couple of months earlier than Chen Fei and Long Jinjing, but her papers took longer to process before she received approval to work in China.
Clover immediately joined the girl squad. The twins Dom and Meimei were ecstatic, as they became triplets again. The three already bonded when the Chua family visited the country. She connected so naturally with the rest of the girl squad, as if she had been friends with them for years.
For now, Clover was assigned to work as Iris’ administrative assistant at Orchidia Beauty. Iris wanted her to polish her Mandarin language skills and get used to the Chinese business industry first before promoting her to an executive position later on.
Iris also placed Clover to live at the penthouse. Yi Mei and the other household staff were delighted to have someone in the place once again for them to take care of.
Long Jinjing, Chen Fei and Clover were all very excited in their new positions and the endless possibilities of a newly established company. They were all very motivated and determined to make Orchidia Beauty a success.
At first, Chen Fei and Long Jinjing thought that Iris hired them to run the company in her stead. They had the impression that Iris would only be a symbolic figurehead of the company.
Within a week of closely working with her, however, they quickly realized that Iris not only had the skills but also the experience of effectively running a business. She knew what she wanted, was very methodical in creating a strategy to achieve her business goals, and was very decisive in implementing the strategy.
Surprisingly, Iris and Chen Fei developed a balanced dynamic in their leadership.
Iris was more of the daring type who forged ahead at top speed to accomplish whatever ideas she came up with. It was an excellent quality for a business head to have. But sometimes her fearless attitude in business was alarming to the point of recklessness.
Chen Fei introduced cautiousness into the mix. She was more of the conservative type who tended to play by the rules in business.
The two of them still squabbled a lot while working, just like when they hung out together. But as they continued to work closely together, they were able to influence each other in positive ways.
Iris continued to fly daringly in the sky with her business ideas, but Chen Fei tethered her to the ground with a loose string of caution, keeping her on track with their specific goals. Likewise, Iris was able to show Chen Fei that it was okay to explore new ideas and not to be so rooted to the traditional way of doing business.
As for Long Jinjing, she immediately controlled the company’s budget. Despite her somewhat timid personality, she was surprisingly strict and unyielding when it came to doing her job.
“Little Sister Xiulan, I mean Miss President, you can’t just indiscriminately give away free samples to other people as you like. It’s like giving away free money. We haven’t made any profit yet, but you’ve already given away so much. This must stop.” Long Jinjing told Iris.
“Miss CFO, I’m not indiscriminately giving away free samples. This is called marketing. I’m giving away the samples to our future customers,” Iris retorted.
“I know what marketing is, but what you’re doing is too excessive, Miss President. There is no need to give multiple free samples to the same person. Letting them try once is enough. That’s the purpose of a sample. It’s not meant to be a regular free supply. If they want more, they just have to wait until we officially launch so they can buy our products. From now on, you’re only allowed a limited number of samples per month to give away. I also suggest not to give to the same person more than once.”
“Fine, you’re right. I’ll just have to inform my manager and the others that I can’t give them free samples anymore,” Iris muttered.
Long Jinjing sighed in relief. Persuading someone like Iris who had a strong stubborn streak was quite challenging. Fortunately, Iris had an open mind and would listen to reason. Long Jinjing was glad that she was able to make his sister understand that being too generous wasn’t always good when it came to business, especially for a company as new as theirs.
Orchidia Beauty’s finances were now tightly regulated by Long Jinjing. She guarded the company’s money like an evil dragon guarding her treasure trove.
One thing that she wasn’t allowed to restrict, however, was the product development team. Alric Bauer was given first priority of the company’s funds to develop products. It was part of Iris’ original agreement with him. But of course, he was only allowed this kind of privilege as long as his research and development benefitted Orchidia Beauty.
Long Jinjing could only sigh at the astronomical expenses of the product development team, even though she knew that the products were the lifeblood of the company. It was just her instinct as the CFO to save as much money as possible.
Qiao Yu, Iris’ personal financial manager who temporarily held the company’s CFO position, was relieved when Long Jinjing came along. He approved of Long Jinjing’s strict control of the company’s finances.
Managing the Young Miss Xiulan’s personal finances is already very challenging on its own. Now I don’t have to suffer the headache of managing her companies’ finances as well, he thought to himself.
His job became even more exciting and complicated when Iris allocated a large part of her wealth to be invested within the Cross Academy’s exclusive business network. The academy’s business network spanned the entire globe, consisting of some of the most lucrative investment opportunities in the industry.
Jin Corporation was a member of this network because of Grandpa Lu. Almost all of the Cross Academy alumni and partners signed their businesses up as members in this exclusive network. The goal was to support each other and profit together. It also benefitted the members because their businesses were backed by the legendary Cross Academy.
As for Planet Monkey, it needed to reach a certain profit threshold first before it could qualify for consideration. Iris planned on submitting applications for both Planet Monkey and Orchidia Beauty in the future to make them members of the academy’s exclusive business network.
Managing all of these was Qiao Yu. Exploring and navigating the impressive business network of Cross Academy was like a dream come true for him. It felt like he just ascended from the mortal plane to join the realm of immortals.
No, that was incorrect. He was just an emissary sent to represent Long Xiulan, a.k.a. Iris Long, who was the real member of this exclusive network of immortals.
Ever since he discovered this exclusive network, Qiao Yu felt like he had just discovered his real purpose in life. He already achieved the goal of making Iris a billionaire in China at the age of 20. Although Iris didn’t give him a new goal, he made up another one for her instead.
“In China, you’re already a billionaire. But in a global scale, you’re just a multi-millionaire. I’m going to make you a certified billionaire in the world, not only in China, before you’re 25. And you don’t need to marry into the Jin family to do that. I’ll make you a billionaire in your own right,” he promised her.
