The chief financial officer, Helena Brooks, had once reported directly to me. She called Daniel with a stack of internal emails showing that Nolan had bypassed the normal approval chain. He used temporary consultants, newly appointed executives, and a vendor number that had been inactive for years.
“Why didn’t anyone stop him?” I asked.
“Several people tried,” Daniel said. “Two were reassigned. One was dismissed. Helena preserved their complaints.”
I pictured the employees who had built careers under my father’s leadership. They had watched Nolan replace careful controls with personal loyalty, and they had feared for their jobs. I had assumed a company that large could protect itself through policy. Policies only work when people can safely insist on them.
The board appointed an independent special committee. It restricted Nolan’s authority and ordered a forensic review. None of this overturned my conviction, but it made his plan harder to complete.
