Extremely helpful. Really helps clear up a dark cloud that spooked me. Yours is the most logical explanation I have heard. Maybe with the more stringent SEC guidelines on accounting you need to be a CPA to be the CFO. Perhaps KD was so comfortable with his skill set that he was ok with Schiff just being a consultant and handling the CFO related stuff. I don't recall seeing a SEC filing by EGMI regarding his consulting contract.
If he let his license lapse, then no D&O insurance for him. I was told Schiff was from a very wealthy family and did not want to risk his family fortune. I always doubted that. I once looked him up on the Stanford MBA website with my secret password. No profile on him. No real details other than a picture of him at a class reunion. I do not doubt he may have quite a few millions in the bank, but it was portrayed that he had a vast family fortune. Doubt it. Nice excuse.
As I think more....I stated this in a different post quite a while ago....It took two months for him to resign because the company did not have D&O. Based on your post, I suspect it took two months for the insurance company to determine he did not qualify or his rate would be so high due to not being an active CPA. Thus, Linden could go back to being interim CFO and maybe Tom just does the CFO work (as you describe). That would be especially likely if Linden lives in London (anyone know?)
I did a quick web search using Schiff's name, fraud, sec, etc and nothing comes up. There is a Thomas Schiff in LA dealing with a recent fraud, but different guy - he is a lawyer graduated from Harvard (gee, who would have guessed?)
I agree with you on the "extensive search". I concluded the same a while ago. Yeah, they probably did get a 1000 resumes, but Schiff was always going to get the job, unless the CFO of IBM applied for the job.
AI
