WRIT LARGE: Ch 15, Part 1

Women Rising

Despite the number of guests seated in the Lemon3 Café in the Scapes Hotel, the high ceilings and airy spaciousness, together with the rainforest views outside, provide the fresh ambience of being seated in your own tiny private corner of the world. The thought that today, anything could happen, crosses my mind.

I see a hand raised in my direction and find Cathie Wood and Beth Moses seated at a window table. I cross the hall and join them.

“Hey there,” says Cathie. “Just the person we need. We’re trying to settle on a suitable title for my podcast with Beth.”

I tell them that I am flattered, but that titles are often the most difficult part of novel-writing and now that they have put me on the spot, I will most certainly disappoint them.

“I can’t believe that you still suffer from Impostor Syndrome,” says Beth. “I don’t imagine that you have ever written anything disappointing.”

The waiter comes with a fresh pot of steaming coffee and hands me a menu, which I accept gratefully. I did not drink champagne like the others last night, and surreptitiously requested bottles of water whenever the opportunity arose, but am still feeling tired and a little dehydrated. I tell Beth that it is a tough outlook to shrug off, and that I once rewrote a ghost story in primary school so many times that my teacher said it was impossible to read above the tangle of erased words. The fact that she didn’t read it all upset me more than if she had read it and disliked it.

Beth laughs while Cathie watches me with her customary intense gaze. I ask if either of them ever has days when they feel that they have arrived where they are quite by fluke.

“The first time I was in space,” says Beth, “I had a moment when I was looking down at the planet and wondering how I came to be there, but not in the way that I didn’t deserve it. It was more a deep-seated gratitude that I was there. I am extremely fortunate that I have a job that I love, and one that most people will only ever dream of doing, so now, when I wake each morning, I remind myself that I am a space instructor and that I am good at what I do.”

“One of our potential podcast titles is Women Going Beyond the Glass Ceiling,” says Cathie. “I am hoping that Leann will be back in time to join us for the podcast. Did she tell you how long she will be away?”

I inform them that last night Leann was drinking champagne on a deserted island, after arranging for her best friend, the bride, to be kidnapped by pirates and escorted by private jet to join them.

“So that’s how twenty-first-century pirates travel,” says Beth. “Impressive.”

I add that she was also looking forward to the podcast and I’m sure she wouldn’t want to miss it. I suggest as a title, Women Looking Down, with its connotations of Beth in space and of Mother Earth. Women embracing the planet as opposed to men wielding the mighty sword of power.

“Or trying to,” says Cathie. She refills her coffee cup. I notice that she has barely touched her food and is constantly glancing at her iPhone, which is on the table beside her plate.

There was a hint of irritation in her comment, and I ask when she began to envisage herself as the CEO of a company like ARK Invest.

“I’m not sure I ever did fully envisage it,” she says. “At least not in the guise of ARK Invest. I’ve worked hard all my life, like any regular mom trying to give their kids a decent life, and I’m lucky that investment is my strength. I played to my strengths, the way you play to yours and Beth plays to hers. I’m no more an astronaut than you are, and my relationship with books stretches as far as reading in bed.” She sips her coffee and pauses as the waiter brings my food. “I bet, when you’re writing, you think of your work-in-progress as your baby.”

I agree with her, that a book must be nurtured into existence in the same way a child is nurtured into being the best version of the person they are to become. Likewise, Beth will nurture her apprentices, and Cathie will have nurtured ARK Invest and watched it grow.

“Answer me this then,” she says. “Your book is doing well, it’s consistently selling copies, maybe even made the New York Times bestseller list, and then your publisher decides they want to take sole control of your book, because they feel they can make even more money with it. You wrote it – the book is, in effect, your baby. How would you feel?”

I sense that there is more to this theoretical question, and Cathie’s nervous energy, than she is letting on. I answer that the publisher would have a fight on their hands because, although their assistance in publishing the book was fundamental to its success, the idea was mine, I chose the words, the hard slog of producing the finished story was down to me. The publisher was the midwife who then had no rights to the baby.

“Lovely metaphor,” says Beth.

Cathie grins at me then and her eyes light up behind her signature spectacles. “Exactly my point,” she says. “Unfortunately, in business that concept doesn’t seem to apply. Another affiliate asset management platform is attempting to take control of ARK, and part of me is wondering if it’s time to step away and start reaping the rewards of my hard work.”

Beth and I both say, “No,” together. I ask, as she said ‘another’, what happened the first time and how she overcame it.

“Resolute Investment Managers, one of our affiliates, took a minority holding in ARK back in 2016, with the option to buy a controlling interest in 2021. They decided to exercise this right three days after I published a proposal to find a new distributor.” She holds her hands out in a gesture of disbelief. “I was so disappointed. This was my business that I built with my own ideas and my own convictions, and there was no way I was allowing it to happen. The takeover would not have been good for the business or its employees; it was a case of a boardroom full of men wielding the mighty sword of power as you put it, and waiting for the dollar signs to land in their bank accounts. I had no choice, but to pay them not to exercise their right to take the majority share.”

“Can you do the same again this time around?” asks Beth. “Isn’t there a way to prevent this kind of takeover bid, or is this a downfall of asset management?”

“It’s a downfall of being in a world that’s driven by profits. And you know what, I’ve no doubt I’ll find a way to get through it this time around, but it’s the thought of this battle, and the next battle, and the next, that’s wiping me out. My mom’s health isn’t great and …” She pauses, staring out of the window at the treetops of the rainforest. When she turns back to us, she’s smiling, she’s Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest again. “It’s tough,” she says simply.

I wonder if the one thing she wants to tell us is the one thing that is eating away at her: that it’s tough for a woman trying to stay on top of an industry that’s predominantly male-led. I tell her that if there’s one thing that I’ve learnt from the women I am fortunate enough to have in my life, it’s that they never stop fighting for what they believe in, whether it’s their family, or bile farming in Asia, or the business they’ve built from scratch, and that a better title for the podcast would be simply Women Rising.

Cathie’s smile suggests that she had taken some comfort from this.

“You’ll find a way,” says Beth. “You’ll keep your business, and spend time with your mom, because you’re not ready to walk away yet. If you were, you wouldn’t even be discussing this with us.”

It’s her aura, I tell her – another thing I’ve learnt from a great woman who also suggested I should grow an eighties mullet.

They both laugh. “That has to be Leann,” says Cathie.