That was after the Henderson report. Before it, I had eight solid votes. She stopped. Someone knew that. Marcus sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the wall.
"Raymond Voss received my flag," he said. "He told me it was a formatting issue. He closed the thread." "Raymond Voss has been with the company since we were a 30 person startup," Amelia said slowly. He was hired by the previous COO, Gerald Penn. Gerald Penn, Marcus filed the name.
Penn had left the company two years ago officially to pursue other opportunities which everyone in the building understood as the diplomatic version of he and Amelia didn't agree on the direction but his departure hadn't been loud. No drama, no counternarrative. He just stopped being there. Is Penn connected to any of the current board members? Marcus asked.
Silence too. Amelia said he sits on the advisory board of one of our major institutional investors and he and director Caldwell have been golfing together since the9s. Caldwell Thomas Caldwell board member been on the board since this company went public 6 years ago. One of the loudest voices in the September review, calling for Amelia to bring in an experienced operational hand to stabilize the project management, which everyone in the executive suite had understood to mean someone pen recommends. Marcus felt the shape of it click into place the way things do when you've been looking at separate pieces long enough.
They're trying to replace you, he said. They've been trying to replace me for 18 months, Amelia said. It wasn't self-pity. It was fact. Stated with the flat certainty of someone who has known it and kept working anyway.
I'm too young. I'm a woman and I built this company into something that's worth three times what they paid for it. Which means they have strong opinions about how it should be run and a vested interest in the outcome. A beat. What they needed was a reason that looked operational.
Something that made it seem like the company had outgrown my ability to lead it. Henderson, Marcus said. Henderson, she confirmed. $12 million, high profile, and the numbers made it look like an execution failure in the division that reports to me. Marcus thought about Raymond Voss's lukewarm eyes. About the email he'd sent in August and the silence that had followed it.
Raymond gave them the cover. Marcus said he didn't have to falsify anything himself. He just had to make sure the flag didn't go anywhere. Yes, she paused, which makes him an accessory at minimum. Whether he knew the full shape of it or just understood that burying your flag was what he was being asked to do, I don't know yet.
What do you need from me? I need you to not change anything about your behavior on Monday. She said, "Come in. Do your job. Be exactly who you are.