Overview
Danger International is the corporate face of the famed Danger Family. The company was founded by Johnny Danger with profits earned from an african diamond mind and carefully stewarded by his children and grandchildren into a multinational organization for both economic growth and charity. The overarching corporation is Danger International, the privately held corporation is the prime or full owner of the assorted corporate and non-profit arms that make up the sprawling Danger empire. Within this umbrella are the several companies and charities that do the actual business of Danger International.
The John and Patricia Danger Foundation serves as the primary charitable arm of the Danger family managing assorted endowments, scholarships, as well as investment and fundraising for the Foundations Trust. Danger Industries is the company responsible for the operation and management of the original mining interests in Africa from which the other organizations gained their start. Danger Media holds the copyright and trademark materials related to the famed family and it's many licensed product agreements through the ages. The Danger Trade and Tourism Corporation is a publically held corporation related to facilitating trade and tourism with the nation of Dakana. The Danger Institute is a think tank and independent research institute that while lacking the high tech draw of groups like Astrolabs, or Archtech fills a vital niche in natural and social sciences. Danger Financial Services is the golden calf of the Family business, it serves as an international financial services bank as well as a powerful brokerage house in a breadth of markets.
The Danger Family itself serves as a de facto seventh corporate entity, the family resources are collected in an array of trusts and privately held corporate entities to ensure both tax security and contend with some of the difficulties of the extreme lifespans or lifestyles of some members. In particular after the first of Ace Dangers widely publicized deaths on one of his more extreme adventures it was found necessary to secure the family properties and goods in a fashion less reliant upon the terms of mortality that surrounds most matters of inheritance. The members of the family maintain personal smaller holdings but the bulk of their wealth is held in trust and accessed and maintained through accountants. How much personal interest a family member takes in the management of hte trusts of course varies greatly.
The Danger Family
The patriarch of the famed Danger family, John (Johnny) Danger, founder of the Jungle Patrol and Danger International, has long been a larger than life figure in the society circles of Freedom city and the wider world. The Danger fortune and moreover influence has brought him from humble beginnings to a position of prominence. His descendants to enjoy this unique privilege. John and his Wife Patricia were wed in 1924 after a brief engagement, a year later their first born son Ace, after his father's compatriot Ace Adams, was born. The first born scion of the Danger family would go on to many adventures of his own though he himself never sired any children of his own nor wed. Second born Rex Danger (1927-1993) was born two years later in 1927, Both boys at various points in their youth traveled and aided their father on his many adventures and had more than a few of their own, most of them chronicled in one or more of the properties relating to the Jungle Patrols later adventures. Patricia passed comfortably in her sleep in the mid eighties, Rex was killed in the Terminus invasion, his wife Debbie Wildey passed not long after the turning of the millennium. Less well known was their youngest sister Donna Danger-Dent, born in 1930 Donna was raised with much of the luxuries her fathers good fortunes afforded the family. The best schools, tutors, and eventually college led to Donna being the natural if unconventional choice for leading Danger International, among the first woman to serve in a position of power over a fortune five hundred company. Under her leadership the relatively small but lucrative business in diamonds and trade with Dakana her father's connections allowed grew into a potent economic force. Donna has two children of her own with husband Lester Dent(1928-1998) though when the time came for her to retire she passed the mantle of leadership to her niece Rachel Danger who continues to be CEO of Danger international to this day, though Donna remains a potent force in the family and Freedom City society. Rachel oversaw the expansion and division of Danger International into the trusts, corporations, and foundations that they are today. The remaining four Danger grandchildren have at times served in leadership roles within one organization of the family's holdings or another as well as the private sector. Many of the grandchildren have children of their own now, some few perhaps even grandchildren. John and Patricia also took on a young ward when his parents, friends of the Dangers from Johns travels, were caught in the crossfire of the brief 1935 revolution in Iran. Rahim Gilani traveled with John and his son Ace until the second world war broke out when he returned to Iran acting as a liaison between the Iranians and the european occupiers. Rahim never returned to the Danger family though he remained close to Ace and the family through the tumultuous post war years and marrying in Iran shortly after the 1953 coup he died under questionable circumstances shortly after the rise of the Islamic Republic.
(OOC Notes: The grandchildren of Johnny Danger beyond Rachel Danger as well as the great-grand-children are purposely left vague to allow future players to connect with the family through those branches should they choose, Likewise the descendants of Rahim Gilani are left open for further development in the future)
Danger International
Danger International is privately held by the Danger family trusts. CEO Rachel Danger operates the overall strategy of the corporation and the organization of its component trusts, foundations and corporations. While on paper little more than a holding company for the assorted associated organizations it remains potent force in the business worlds of Freedom and beyond. Of late Rachel directs more of the resources towards the charitable works of the organization though the corporate arms remain profitable enough to support this expansion comfortably. As the CEO Rachel also acts as a sort of De Facto matriarch of the family utilizing familial influence and wealth to increase both. Her leadership has been long and she seems sharp still despite her age but many speculate she'll soon seek a successor like her aunt did before her. Danger International also functions as a high profile NGO using the trust and connections the Jungle Patrol built in many areas of Africa and South America to give local government and business leaders a wider voice on the international stage.
John and Patricia Danger Foundation
The sole holding John Danger maintains any direct control over as a sitting trustee the Danger Foundation is the charitable arm of the Danger Family and sees to assorted endowments, scholarships, grants and other direct charitable donations. Most of it's functions are fundraising and award ceremonies for assorted local or national causes from the arts to education and more. Danger Foundation soirees are generally lavish affairs bringing out a who's who of Freedom City luminaries and bringing in large dividends for the causes they promote. The Foundation was initially a labor of love of Patricia Danger who's outspoken calls for greater equity and social justice became the early hallmarks of the foundations works and continues to be the basis on which the foundation pursues its charitable works to this day.
Danger Industries
Danger Industries maintains a series of mines and processing facilities in the regions surrounding Johnny Danger's originally discovered diamond mine in Ghana. The company is held in dual ownership by it's workers and Danger International and enjoys highly progressive pay and benefit scales as well as facilities that act as a model for safe and profitable mineral extraction in Africa. Originally the mines were focused on diamonds earning the Dangers much of their initial fortune in competition with DeBeers and later as the mines began to play out and the diamond market tightened shifted to heavy metals and rare earths that form the foundation of much of modern technology. Working conditions are focused on worker safety and heavy investment in safety as well as infrastructure of hte mines has allowed for highly efficient extraction to local processing facilities where environmentally conscious purification and pollution controls are tested and implemented to create as sustainable a process as possible. Most of the management and implementation of these standards is done by the local workers and management who are after all the most invested in both the continued safe and profitable operation of the mines and limiting the dangers to the communities from the mines and processors. Danger International uses Danger Industries both as an example of sustainable worker friendly success as well as a supply chain for corporations seeking ethical sourcing in their supply chains. These international contacts allow Danger Industries to leverage the advantages of their product to higher valuation against those of less equitable mining concerns by evading wholesale clearing houses.
Danger Media
Danger Media is the rights holder for the many various Danger Family and Jungle patrol media properties as well as modern trademark and likeness rights management of the famed family. The primary holdings are the rights related to the Jungle Patrol serials and their associated secondary properties (animated features, comic books and graphic novels, radio plays, novelizations, and more modern film and television enterprises) as well as the Same for the assorted 'Ace Danger' branded material that was an outgrowth of the youths popularity in the Jungle Patrol media and his further adventures after going independant. They also manage the licensing for these rights with regard to toy and novelty merchandising and handle image management for the family to a lesser degree. In the past Danger media produced some material through an in house studio though that was shuttered during hte downturn in hero popularity amid the Moore years and now new productions are exclusively licensing arrangements.
Danger Trade and Tourism Corporation
Publicly held though, with the royal family of Dakana and Danger International holding over a third of the stock each, firmly under the control of Dakana and the Dangers the DTTC acts as the formal arm of the special relationship between Dakana and the Danger family. During the deeply isolationist era of the early to mid twentieth century Danger International was one of hte few companies able to make regular trade with the nation of Dakana, as the withdrawal from the world lessened with White Lion venturing forth to serve in the Freedom League the relationship was formalized with preferential agreements made for Danger International (and later the DTTC) to act as primary import/export company for Dakana. Now that trade with the nation is more open overall the DTTC is no longer the only game in town but the long standing relationship remains a strong benefit and they manage some of the most lucrative contracts as well as opening up and facilitating guided tourism in the intensely private nation.
Danger Institute
The core of the danger institute is based on the teams of scholars that Johnny Danger employed to investigate artifacts he returned with from his adventures. As times changed and the wholesale plunder of ancient artifacts became less the norm for archeology the Jungle Patrol shifted its focus to environmental issues and the scholarly pursuits grew into the Danger Institute during Rachels reorganization of Danger International holdings. The Danger institute today is split into three main branches and is largely self supporting based on revenue from a series of patents on Jungle Patrol gear that later became hte basis for assorted high end expedition equipment. The first Branch is a think tank devoted to environmental and global social sciences working to improve environmental policies in developing economies. The second is an expeditionary organization that funds and otherwise supports archeological expeditions as well as exploratory or natural sciences expeditions charting and cataloging the more extreme ecosystems on earth, such as deep sea exploration, arctic and deep wilderness surveys and excavation of sites of antiquity, Finally the Institute funds outside researchers in assorted fields through grant awards.
Danger Financial Services
Danger Financial Services holds the bulk of Danger Internationals wealth. Funds that once were tied up in assorted real estate and local ventures around the globe was consolidated under Rachels reorganization into a large investment fund to stabilize the economic backbone of the company. DFS is a publicly held with the Danger Family trusts and Danger International holding controlling interest, in the setup of the trusts voting rights go to the CEO of Danger International. DFS hold diversified investments on a global scale though the main areas of focus are investment in infrastructure for smaller developing nations and supporting local economies through an expansive and growing network of microloans. As well as steady profits, heavy investment in assorted global corporations allows DFS and its officers insight and valuable input into how many of the corporations in question do business in the developing world which is an unstated but well understood secondary goal of the financial institution.
Use in Setting
The Danger family is a collection of exceptionally wealthy and politically potent individuals, the global scope of Danger International pulls that wealth and influence out to a scale where it can act as a background for the Family and it's interests without becoming a stifling amount of wealth and influence in the narrower domain of Freedom city. It's global reach allows for many hooks tying international events to Freedom as well as serving as explanation for expeditions and explorations to far reaches of the earth or local heroes finding themselves working on international crisis's. Locally the philanthropic arms of hte business can serve both as set pieces for high society events as well as ways of handling aftermath of some adventures offscreen (The Orphans were saved and delivered into a program run by the Danger foundation) With local philanthropy focused often on the exceptional it also allows for reasons for those of more humble backgrounds to legitimately find themselves shoulder to shoulder with the elite of Freedom.
