Kevin Lynch, Ph.D.
Leadership Executive-in-Residence
Center for Values-Driven Leadership at Benedictine University

It has been over 10 years now, but I remember it like a scene in a movie. Work was progressing normally, overviewing spreadsheets for the various individually-managed real estate projects owned by the company for which I worked as the Chief Financial Officer.

The spreadsheets had always made sense to me, but now the numbers weren’t adding up. Sources of money were unclear. I began to see a pattern: bank loan proceeds designated for one project was being unethically (and perhaps illegally) shifted to other, unrelated projects. What was worse, this activity appeared to have been going on for some time and I’d unknowingly signed off on several of these transactions.

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