Case study · Due Diligence
What the References Didn't Volunteer
Two profiles: a senior candidate whose integrity held up but whose CV did not, and a promoter whose eleven-company family group showed nothing adverse.
- Credential & CV misrepresentation
- Promoter & counterparty integrity
- career look-back on the candidate
- 10 yrscareer look-back on the candidate
- family entities mapped
- 11family entities mapped
- risk categories screened per subject
- 8risk categories screened per subject
- verdicts instead of pass or fail
- Balancedverdicts instead of pass or fail
01The situation
Not every background check finds a villain. A good one tells you exactly what you are getting.
One client was about to appoint a group CEO with a strong CV and a short last tenure. Another needed to understand a promoter family and its web of companies before committing. Both wanted more than database hits.
How it came to us
A board assessing a senior leadership candidate, and a separate promoter profile commissioned before a relationship.
02How it worked
- 01Leadership candidate: references the candidate did not nominate, from former colleagues, customers and vendors, consistently confirmed his integrity.
- 02The same references showed that contract wins credited to him had been secured before he joined, and that some 'completed' projects were still in progress.
- 03Several directorships of his own ventures overlapped his full-time roles.
- 04Promoter: the family's full entity universe was mapped, not only the promoter's directorships, and declared income was reconciled with visible assets and lifestyle.
Swipe sideways to see the whole diagram.
- Channels & documents
- The organisation
- Where the money ended up
- Cleared / genuine
How it was hidden
Not applicable. The risk was overstatement and incomplete disclosure, not concealment.
03The challenge
Separate integrity from performance claims for a senior candidate, and build a complete, defensible picture of a family group where common names and incomplete identifiers make public-record checks unreliable.
What made it hard
- Common names defeating database checks
- A key referee unavailable
- Incomplete identity data for some family members
- Multi-sector career with own ventures
Red flags that were there to see
- Concurrent directorships during full-time roles
- Common name obscuring litigation checks
- Rapid formation of new family companies
04Our approach
- Workstream 01
Independent references
Discreet conversations with people the subject did not nominate.
- Workstream 02
Corporate records
Directorships and family entity mapping.
- Workstream 03
Litigation, regulatory and sanctions screening
With identifiers to resolve common-name hits.
- Workstream 04
Income and asset reconciliation
Declared income against visible assets and lifestyle.
- Workstream 05
Field verification
Residence and asset verification on the ground.
The breakthrough
Independent references contradicted specific achievement claims while uniformly confirming personal integrity. That let the board weigh the hire on accurate information instead of a pass-or-fail label.
05What we found & did
- The leadership candidate's integrity was confirmed by every independent reference.
- His role in several headline achievements was overstated.
- No adverse media, litigation, regulatory or tax issues were found for the promoter.
- The promoter's lifestyle was consistent with declared income.
06The impact
Both mandates delivered information to decide on: a balanced view of a senior candidate, with development needs identified, and a documented profile of a promoter group with no adverse findings on the checks completed.
- career look-back on the candidate
- 10 yrscareer look-back on the candidate
- family entities mapped
- 11family entities mapped
- risk categories screened per subject
- 8risk categories screened per subject
- verdicts instead of pass or fail
- Balancedverdicts instead of pass or fail
07Lessons for your business
The controls that would have stopped this, or caught it sooner:
- Verify senior achievement claims with sources the candidate did not choose.
- Map concurrent directorships against full-time roles.
- Map the whole family group, not only the subject's directorships.
- Collect identifiers early so common-name hits can be resolved.
~₹5 Crundue benefit quantified
The CEO's Three Vendors
A subsidiary CEO routed a rural retail rollout through vendors fronted by his own associates. The money trail led back to him.
- Procurement reconstruction
- Corporate and statutory records
- Ground intelligence
- Funds-flow tracing
US$4.7M+diversion traced to the founder
Zero Skin in the Game
An investor funded a road-construction contractor. Within months, the founder's own contribution had quietly gone to zero and the diversion had begun.
- Records digitisation
- Funds-flow reconstruction
- Personal wealth analysis
- Corporate and property records
~1Memails and documents reviewed
The Fortune That Wasn't There
Shareholders suspected their managing director of hiding a fortune. On the data available, the money trail did not support that suspicion, and it surfaced employee frauds instead.
- Digital forensics
- Source and application of funds
- Related-party mapping
- Market intelligence
Client names and identifying details are withheld to protect confidentiality. Specific references and client experiences can be shared on request, with the client’s consent.
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