A Love Story in San Francisco

Chapter 17: Who is Kofi

'Lucas!' Emma ran over and hugged Lucas before giving a kiss, Emma could have hugged for minutes if there wasn't a third wheel next to her.

"Lucas,this is Kofi, he's the head of the program and is taking care of me over here. Thank him so much, he drove me here today, I'm very unfamiliar with this side of the road and I really couldn't drive myself here to pick you up." Emma introduced. She wasn't too keen on bothering Kofi anymore, but nah, life was unfamiliar, and these days Kofi had the good sense not to bring up becoming boyfriend again.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Kofi Thompson." said Kofi warmly.

"Nice to meet you, and thank you so much for all the help you've been giving Emma." Lucas replied enthusiastically with a slight declaration of sovereignty.Lucas still had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about Kofi because he could tell from Emma's expression that they knew each other well but Emma didn't usually mention him much.

"Let's go, let's go see our 'magnificent' Base Camp" Emma said with a funny sense of humor, Kofi and Lucas laughed and the three of them left the airport together.

Lucas wanted to stay at the Hyatt Regency in Addis Ababa, the most exclusive hotel near the Base Camp, but Kofi enthusiastically invited him to stay with him at the Base Camp, "There's a room at the Base Camp, and we'll take care of the food and drinks, and most importantly we're a bunch of fun-loving young people here". "So Lucas went straight into the base camp.

Kofi also gave Emma three days' vacation so that Emma could take Lucas around, eat and drink, and the two of them lingered for a few days, eager to make up for the previous month's small separation in these three days.

On the fourth day, the base camp hosted its monthly bonfire. Grilled food, rhythmic music, and a clear African sky with dazzling stars twinkling brought the staff together far from their homelands. It's an important form of team bonding, and Kofi enjoys connecting with team members on such occasions.

This time, he was mostly concerned about Lucas Watkins.

"Hello Lucas, how have you been these past few days?" Kofi opens the conversation first.

"Oh, it's been so much fun here Kofi, thanks for taking care of me, and thank you so much for giving Emma a vacation." Lucas was more polite.

"Emma told me earlier that you were doing asset management in San Francisco? That's not an easy job, you must be very talented." Kofi was starting to get to know Lucas.

"No, no, no, it's really nothing technical. If I were to be straight, a high school student could do this job." Lucas was just about to be modest, but who knew Emma would immediately pick up, "Lucas is an excellent graduate of our university, that's why he's able to work at Highstreet Capital." Kofi looked a bit mesmerized, he had never seen it in Emma's eyes before.

"Oh, Highstreet Capital, I know." Before Lucas and Emma could wonder how a charity worker could recognize this financial company, Kofi directly explained, "I just graduated and entered Wall Street, after working for three years I really couldn't stand the Wall Street's deceitfulness, so I left on my own. I was exposed to charity because of my family, so then I came to Africa hahahaha"

"It's just amazing." Emma said, she had never heard Kofi talk about her past work, she had thought Kofi had been right here in Africa all along.

"So how much do you manage now?" Kofi asked.

"Uh, I'm just a regular fund manager, not much scale." Lucas is still a bit cautious and doesn't want to talk too much about his work.

Kofi heard the element of modesty and looked at Emma with a flirtatious expression and asked, "Really? Why do I get the feeling Lucas is being modest?"

Emma blurted out, "He just took over one of the Brooks family's capital management programs, it's not small."

"Is that the Brooks of Sacramento, California? They can be famously wealthy oh." It seems Kofi knows the market well.

"Yes, but I only manage a small portion." Lucas admitted reluctantly.

After that Lucas and Kofi exchanged a bit of behavioral finance inside economics, Lucas didn't realize that Kofi originally studied computer science, and after entering the financial institution with his programming ability designed a set of automatic operating system, which instantly overcame other strategies in the market. But later due to a director of the company set the parameters of the error, resulting in a rare system wrong led to the company lost tens of millions of dollars, Kofi said he was forced to take responsibility for the accident, so frustrated to the year's salary all returned to the company, and then he resigned.

So far, Kofi won the sympathy and 100% trust of Emma and Lucas.