Page 205 - James Caan - The Real Deal

19 · An Amazing Day

The guy was brilliant. When he took on the role of patron, he
promised he would hold the position until he had raised £250
million pounds for the Full Stop campaign to stamp out child
abuse. That’s an awful lot of money, but he was as good as his
word and somehow he managed it. Consequently, he’s someone I
have a lot of respect for.
It was at about this time that I also accepted an invitation to join a
group called the YPO, the Young Presidents’ Organization. I had
learned that hanging out with able and dynamic people rubbed off
on me and so I took the opportunityto join. It’s a pretty hard club to
get into because you have to be chief executive of a company with a
turnover of so many million and a pretty healthy bank balance –
and you have to be under forty-four when you join. The annual
subscription is no small sum, but I found I was meeting several
people a year who told me it was the best money they’d ever spent.
YPO is essentially a networking organisation that brings to-
gether the most successful operators of their generation. They
organise events where you can meet other entrepreneurs as well as
politicians, business leaders and power brokers. When I went to
my first meeting, I realised I had a lot in common with the other
members. Because of the entry requirements, we were all of a
similar age, at similar levels of success, and our outlooks had a lot
in common. I even found out that most had children who were the
same ages as mine, and that they had the same problems with
balancing home and work life: with so much in common I made
many great friends really quickly.
One of the elements of YPO membership is forums made up of
CEOs of non-competing companies who meet up every six weeks
to discuss their businesses, their plans and their options – it
sounded like some kind of informal board meeting to me. I’d met
other YPOers at conferences, and I was amazed when I got talking
to an American in London who flew back to San Francisco every
six weeks for his forum meeting.

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