Chapter 29
Lennon had probably given twenty keynotes over the course of his career. He couldn’t say he enjoyed them. They were part of the job, like interviews and occasionally having to wear a suit. He gave them because they kept his name, and his company’s name, in the public eye and thus allowed them to get funding for new projects.
An introvert, he’d never been a huge fan of public speaking. When he’d been a young man, he’d been afraid he would forget his words, or bore the audience, or switch languages in a bizarre act of social anxiety. None of that could compare to getting up on a stage in front of thousands of his competitors and colleagues knowing someone in the audience wanted to kill or kidnap him.
He came prepared. Ben hadn’t let him leave the room without a bullet-proof ves
