Shu fly don't ARVO me
Not all of us in this virtual reunion are former FutureBranders. Former, you know, by choice, chance, sobriety or security escort. If Cassie and Eli were to teleport from the year 2013, they’d find their coffee and bagels replaced with tea and crumpets and few familiar faces from the Park Avenue South glory days. With the recent downsizing of Boy Jooh and Henri, our original ranks have been thinned to the following Fab Five:
Veronique Bergeron.
Tanieka Farrington.
Enshalla Anderson.
Jamahl Umar.
Brian Shu.
Yeah, yeah, we know Victoria still works for the company. But that’s way down under in Melbourne. And sure, Kris Pelletier, Emily Hartnett, Amanda G., Tara Gupta and Clare-Louise Smith are still pulling paychecks endorsed by HyperMedia Solutions. But their bloodlines can’t be traced back to the Old Country downtown, so no dice.
This begs the question: if the Brits keep up their Hunger Games style of corporate restructuring, who will be the last OG FBer standing?
Will it be…Veronique?
Not likely. Too much wanderlust. VB can only pull off corporate normal for so long. She’s likely to get that itch again. Scratch, scratch, scratch, pack up the cats and HELLO barefoot llama farm poet outside of Chattanooga. LET’S DO THIS!
How about Tanieka?
Possible, but T is too big a foodie. You know she’s gotta be tired of ordering boiled chicken, blood pudding and mushy peas for the company picnic. She’s gonna want a gig with a little bit more kick to it than that.
What are the odds on Jamahl?
Jamahl will decide when Jamahl’s had enough. One day his phone won’t answer. His picture, if any exist, will be scrubbed from the Internet. Jamahl will be in the wind…leaving no loose ends and not a single fingerprint.
Will Enshalla reign supreme?
Shit, if the Brits couldn’t can Kari, they’ll never have the nads to sack Enshalla. She will destroy, demolish and demoralize them with one raised eyebrow. So sure, she’s the smart Vegas bet. A scrappy street fighter with a Harvard MBA. But we’re going with an even stronger candidate, guaranteed to be victorious.
Our money’s on Brian Shu.
Ever since the boy band blokes from No Direction said cheerio to Tom Li, Brian Shu’s moved to the top of the seniority pile. What’s he been there…13 years? 15 years? 20? Did he start as an intern? Was he grown in an experimental CMG lab? Nobody really knows except for Brian Shu.
That’s because Brian Shu knows everything. And at a company where institutional knowledge and truthiness are in shorter supply than toilet paper these days, Brian Shu ain’t going anywhere. Somebody actually has to know how to drive the bus. And on the right side of the street no less.
Imagine for a second that branding agencies, like pimply-faced teenagers, needed a government-issued license to drive. How exactly would FB 2020 fare on the written test?
Q: What qualifies you to run a North American branding office?
A: Nepotism, mate!
Q: How many Koreans are on your Design team?
A: Zero!
Q: How many designers are on staff?
A: Well none, but we do have two Chief Creative Officers!
Q: Why do you need two Chief Creative Officers?
A: We need one to do all the work, and the other to act like a total arsehole wanker.
Q: How many Germans do you have in Strategy?
A: Not a one!
Q: You don’t employ any Germans? Who does all the brand architecture?
A: Don’t even know what that is!
Q: It says here that you laid off the company’s founder, a man named Tom Li. He’d been getting shit done for 28 years and was universally beloved by all. Is that true?
A: Yes indeed. Some of our dodgiest work, in fact. Can’t have someone more popular than me in the office. My mum said I’m the most charming.
Q: OK, so no Koreans, No Germans and no Tom Li? How exactly are you keeping the lights on?
A: I may be thick as a brick, but I’m not a total tosser. See mate, it’s my job to make bonkers decisions. And it’s Brian Shu’s job to count the quid and fix my fuckups. Without that chap, we would have been tits up two months after my arrival.
Fellow pilgrims, on this the 499th day of April, raise a glass to one of FutureBrand’s finest, past and present, Brian Shu. Points off for being an annoying Mets’ fan, but otherwise a solid, decent, upstanding dude who saved many an ARVO with his corporate AMEX and Monday morning math. Where so much in the world seems up in the air, Brian Shu’s tenure at FutureBrand is written in stone. In fact, even if he wanted to, they can’t let him leave! Because not only does Brian Shu know where the bodies are buried, he approved the purchase of the shovel.