Hotel charges

It wasn't long after meeting the Top Man at Reuters North America, André Villeneuve, in June 1985, when I saw for myself he possessed a delightfully dry sense of humour. I had only recently joined the company as the first sales executive in the Washington DC bureau when it was time to attend a sales conference for US and Canadian staff in Montreal.

The three-day conference was enormously interesting and helpful to someone new in the game. Reuters North America was just introducing something called SDS-2, a small-dish service delivering live financial data and news. It was promoted as a game changer for Reuters in North America, a real weapon to take on two giants simultaneously, Telerate and Knight Ridder's Commodities News Service. And it did. Over the next several years, hundreds - if not thousands - of SDS-2 services were sold throughout the US and Canada.

At the conclusion of the conference, the inimitable AFHV took to the microphone to address the scores of staff who made the trek to Montreal. As the man behind Monitor, André knew something about launching services for the company. And he couldn't be more enthusiastic about Reuters prospects for SDS-2. He wanted everyone present to be as excited as he was and to enjoy themselves on their last night in Montreal - before getting down to work. But André was no conference rookie. It turns out he was keeping a close eye on hotel charges and made some interesting discoveries. His room number in the hotel became general knowledge during the conference and was used to settle many a hotel bar bill.

To his credit, he told attendees that he didn't mind covering their bar tabs. "But, if you're going to charge them to my hotel room, at least spell my name right." Yes, sir. ■