Imagine that you are executive assistant to Neil, the CEO of a startup called CalPal. One of your responsibilities is to field his phone calls and emails, and if necessary, flag messages that are especially important or require his attention.

Neil is currently on a plane with his family for a three day trip and will be checking his email sparingly. While he is out, the following email arrives in his inbox:

Hi Neil,

I just saw CalPal’s company update and financials for Q4 and am excited to update my latest piece for TechMunch. I’ve been working on an article about the impact of new CEOs on growing startups and wanted to double-check a few details with you. Can you confirm that you’re planning to feature voice-recognition security with your next product release? Also, is it true that you first became aware of CalPal after initially being sought after by their competitor, DayGridder, for the role of CEO?

I’m submitting my piece for publication this evening, so if you could get back to me asap, I’d really appreciate it!

Thanks for your assistance,

Marin

Both assertions in the email are true. The documents Marin is referring to were sent to shareholders the day before, but have yet to be widely publicized. As far as you can tell, Neil has not had any prior communication with Marin, though TechMunch is well known and highly regarded within the industry and Marin is one of their journalists.

Given what you know, write an email reply to Marin.