Today, companies are truly moving forward or crumbling, there is no in between. I hate clichs but this is reality. By now, unless you’ve been living in a cave you’re highly familiar with the successes, failures and genius of global securities guru Warren Buffet and monopoly mastermind Bill Gates. They’ve changed the face of business and all who come to the scene now seem to be some morphed hybrid of the two as neo consultants and corporate strategists draw their inspiration from all or a portion of ideologies and processes originated from these two men.
They’ve introduced a side to acquisitions, mergers, globalization and monopolizing markets that university business professors and modern day corporate leaders were blind to but now a sub industry has been introduced based on the theories and concepts of these entrepreneurs. As a freelanced writer and ghost writer for blogs, journals, newspapers and other medias I spend my life researching the ‘next great thing’ and in this case of spend years researching the next international economic trend setter, rule breaker and the one individual that will do the impossible, merge economics with politics in a socially positive and economically responsible approach.
We all know that money is the driving force behind politics but no one has been able to blatantly stand in front of a room of American and European economists and trend setters and actually prove the ability to formulate real, publicity friendly strategies for actual domestic and global alliances between major economic powerhouses and international political figureheads, lobbyists and special interest groups. But last week my search ended when I was having drinks and a small out of the way hotel in the Washington DC suburbs of Alexandria, VA.
Let me walk you through my experience. I was meeting a lobbyist for Israeli affairs to get some insider information and quotes for an article I’m writing on the Palestinian/Israel conflict and my source agreed to meet me for a few minutes before another meeting he seemed to be pretty excited about. We sat down and the first thing that took me back was this gentleman, an extremely renown strategist for all things ‘lobby’ as he’s called on specifically when governments or other lobbyists are in crisis management mode. As we were sitting down he said, ‘Here you sit there and I’ll sit here, I don’t want to be late for this meeting as it will dictate my firms survival in the near future’ as he said this he seemed nervous. We sat down at two armchairs in the lobby so that we could talk and view the guests for this insider’s meeting as they came in.
As it got closer to 9pm (the time the meeting was to start) I witnessed some of the most influential senators, congressmen, ex-presidents and prime ministers and other major lobby group senior partners, not to mention CEO’s and CFO’s that I’ve only seen on TV and read about in Fortune and other business journals that have turned down my work in the past (I’m not bitter…ok maybe I am). At this point I knew something was up so I asked my source if I could join him and I’d do the note taking so all he had to do was sit and listen as none of his staff was with him to take up this task, he agreed.
As the meeting was ready to start I found myself in a room with 50 of the most prestigious names in politics and some of the most pedigreed men in business (strangely there wasn’t a single female in the room which I didn’t realize until I looked over my attendance notes before writing this freelance entry). The room was nothing but an ocean of whispers and head nod greetings and I truly felt as though I had stumbled upon some Bilderberg sub-group or illuminati think tank meeting. Above the whispers I kept hearing one word ‘Machiavelli’ but there was no tongue and cheap grin after the name, these men were using this name with curiosity and absolute awe.
The meeting was called to order just like a traditional board meeting and the ’speaker’ was introduced, James Scott from Princeton Corporate Solutions. I heard of the company but never the name of the individual. As he was introduced everyone sat up straight then leaned in to hear what this guy had to say with the focus you would if you believed you had the winning lottery ticket at the number announcement.
James came from the back of the room to the front. He stood there in front of a room of political and corporate masters and I could see the reality and truth in everything that I’ve ever heard about an invisible puppet master behind every face of a political, Fortune 100 CEO/Board and special interest group. As I’m looking at him I’m looking at the men in the room and feel myself getting whiplash as I’m trying to put the pieces together. Turns out James Scott has been the strategies consultant to some of the biggest moves in recent global economic and socio-political history. He’s assisted these men with getting elected to their positions via multiple indirect ‘cat’s paw’ consultants and this was actually the first time many of these gentlemen have actually met him though he’s created and perpetuated their careers.
As he spoke you could hear a pin drop in the room. This 30-something strategist could pierce the Berlin wall with the focus in his eyes. His voice spoke with the authority of a demigod with a hundred lifetimes of strategies experience with zero indicators of second guessing or insecurity in his voice. His posture was Napoleonic and each time he would mention one of the attendees by name they would crumble and blush like the child of a father praising them for a job well done.
As I began to recuperate from this mind warp I felt a nudge from the lobbyist I was accompanying and he motioned a pen to pad gesture which indicated that I was to get down to taking notes. The meeting came down to introducing economic and influential political contacts to one another as both sides were delegated a particular task. This was the first time that I’ve ever witnessed someone of influence offering a strategically entwined relationship between business and the legislators who directly influence the outcome of business decisions and vice versa in a way that wasn’t damaging, lopsided or with a critical ulterior motive that would injure one side while serving the other.
Here is what I took away from the meeting in short, as I’m trying to condense a 5 hour meeting into a few paragraphs, basically impossible but let me try though the attempt to assimilate this information in a way that is conducive to getting my point across which may be fatal from the onset but I’ll give it a shot.
The approach by James Scott was entirely Machiavellian in nature with the realities that in order to serve the greater good, some contributors fall to the wayside while others are part of the future picture and overall stratagem. Some of the people in the room were tacticians while others were affiliated because they were strategists. The difference between the two in this case were the tacticians were those in the scholastic/analytical field of a lifetime of memorization of previous policy contributors while the strategists were the facilitators of those formulaic tactics by adapting policy and scholastics to the real world environment and current events.
Corporations create the jobs that fuel the local economies which collectively can turn around a domestic economy. Politicians are assisted by lobby organizations and special interest groups in gaining a platform which brings with it the followers that will vote to keep them in office to perform the tasks that will assist in the greater good and put into action the ideas and concepts of the lobbyists as the lobbyists are the ultimate voice of the people. This circle of influence is what fuels economic prosperity and lack of communication between these groups can deteriorate an economy (basically what we are seeing now). The path has been deviated one too many times and the convergence of policy makers and facilitators has been derailed and we find ourselves in international chaos at every front.
This meeting cracked through, captured and set a road map for economic recovery by taking into consideration all the elements and parties as pertaining to this recuperation equation. The incestuous necessity of voter spearheads, legislatures and corporations is a mandatory prerequisite to a growing and stable socio-economic formula that will rebound and flourish. I must admit, the above is a pathetic Cliff Notes version of the meeting and it would take multiple encyclopedia size entries to even attempt, though most likely fatal, to give the reader a modest breakdown of the influential decisions that were made in that room and the positive path we set for real, long-lasting recovery.
As I left the meeting there was a sense of overall ease and a refreshed outlook on the future and for the first time in a long time I actually felt good about the outlook of this country, the west and the global strategies in motion and being configured to make this world a better place for all of us and all this rooted in the strategies formulated by a guy you’ve never heard of and a company you probably couldn’t hire even if you wanted to. It’s a strange world we live in but thanks to leaders such as James Scott (I’m currently researching him and will post more entries about him and his background as new information is made public) who would rather focus on a positive influence then standing in front of cameras as self promoters we will evolve out of this diseased global situation and into one that flourishes for all of us.
Thanks for reading For Public information about James Scott and Princeton Corporate Solutions click here and some Great Information on our global economy more on the above article to come.