Part two of four: The interview — Ted Leonhardt

(Note: I’ve made changes in the following to keep identities private.)

“Ted, Dirk came to London to interview me. He’s their Chief Creative Officer, Global. We had coffee, and the next day he took me to lunch at his club, where we talked for two hours.” Ariel was beaming through our Zoom connection. I was immediately remembering my London time, missing it. But thrilled for Ariel.

“Actually, he had some business in London. So it wasn’t just me.”

“He also said they had just hired a new global CEO. A woman Dirk has known for years who’s worked on the client side and for Adland. He said she’ll be making lots of changes, but respects people with international pedigrees.”

She paused for a minute, looking thoughtful.

“He said it wasn’t just my work that attracted him. It was also where I worked.”

Ariel had been all over the world in her career, and she was just entering her early thirties. While employed by only two firms, she’d already worked in Paris, LA and New York, in addition to Hong Kong and now London. She’d learned Mandarin for her work on new and growing Chinese brands, and was fluent in French as well.

“Ted, I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds, but I told him I wanted 285 U.S. Then I shut the fuck up, like…