#41 - Pav Gill

Welcome to CS Jack, where every top is fair game. From finance to mysteries, we'll never be the same. Our host accounted with a knack for a joke. We'll dive into the details and laugh until we choke. CSI chat where the numbers beat the fun. We'll explore every subject. >> Okay. Well, um we are really lucky today to be joined by uh by Pav Gilt. Um Pav is uh you know uh probably one of the

most uh famous whistleblowers on the uh on the platform uh on on the planet, excuse me. Uh who was was a critical uh person who brought uh the truth to what was going on at at Wirecard. And uh we're very very lucky to uh to be joined by uh by Pav. I'm going to give a little bit of uh a little bit of background on uh on on PAV. Um and then we'll uh we'll get right uh we'll get right into it. So um Pav is a is a lawyer. Uh he has a originally a lawyer. He's got a law degree from the National University of

Singapore and he subsequently worked as an associate for Allen and Overy uh Clifford Chance and King and Spalding. After serving as senior legal count uh legal counsel for Goar, he joined uh Wirecard as its first head of legal for the Asia-Pacific region. And really uh after a short time or a period of time at Wirecard, he really brought um the world's attention to the infamous uh Wirecard scandal and um Wirecard went from a company that I think capped out around 24 25 billion euro of market cap

that effectively went down to uh to zero. Um and Pav was was critical in bringing the truth to uh to the light in terms of what happened at at Wirecard. And uh he is also now the uh the founder and CEO of the Confide platform which is a system that allows organizations to confidentially receive, investigate and resolve risks as uh you know it's critical for all organizations obviously especially public companies to be have uh you know to kind of have a platform to allow people to uh to speak in a in a

confidential way. And again, it's important that companies get this and and are able to uh to respond to uh issues appropriately and the confide platform uh certainly is uh is is critical critical for that. But Pav um thank you very much for uh for joining us. We really appreciate you taking the time. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. So the way I wanted to start is um you know I'm fascinated uh you know obviously with your with your story but you know it

takes somebody of a it takes somebody with a certain character in order to in order to do what uh in order to do what you did to to kind of stand up and and and expose the uh expose the truth. And as we're going to get into it um to you know it's one thing to do it. It's it's another thing again to face you know peer pressure and and you know and and and you know scrutiny from from your from your fellow employees and all and all that sort of stuff. It's another thing though to have issues with respect to your personal safety as well which um

which also uh which also came to uh you know came to light. But what I'm fascinated to know, Pav, is is is when you look back and and kind of reflect on this, um, and you go back to your early days, if we start with your early days as a youngster, I'm interested to know, you know, what built you up in order to be able to speak up and and frankly deal with this situation. Was it um something that uh happened in your early days? Obviously your your mom was was really critical in terms of uh raising you and and and instilling you with the right

values or was it something that maybe you learned prior to joining Warrior Card in your in your work experience? So maybe we'll start with the former if you talk about your your early childhood p. Was there anything in that early childhood that kind of prepared you or or built those ethical values that would allow you to withstand uh and deal with what happened at Wireart? >> Yeah, that's a that's a great question to start with. I mean, when I was young, um, my mom's a single parent and I'm the only child. So, I guess from a young

age, I was forced to man up, if you want to call it, uh, put it that way. So, you know, as a young kid, I used to pretend to be like, you know, the protector of the family or whatever in my tiny ways. Um, and I think that kind of also over time uh played a huge role in making me who I am because I used to see like my mom, my my aunts, um, and everyone, you know, being so nice uh, being kind and also, you know, because of that being

taken advantage of, uh, whether by friends or by colleagues. So, I made it a point to always be on the lookout and not want to be in that situation. It's so much easier said than done. Um, and I think Ward was one of the ultimate tests for that. Like, would you really uh want to be put in a corner, be uh even after you left the company, would you still tolerate this nonsense, right? Like at some point, >> you know, even if you're an animal, I would say if you're cornered, you would have no choice but to turn around and

fight back um or just do something and not not cave. So, I think that's probably what happened in the wire crowd situation. Um, and yeah, it's it's I mean at the end of the day, even if you distill it down, I think fundamentally people should have a right to say what's troubling them to clarify things that don't make sense. Uh, it's just a fundamental right of free speech in that sense. Um, and that's also crazy like why is speaking up uh in a corporate

setting so controversial >> in the street, right? like if I saw a crime happening in the street and I did something about it, you'll be hailed as a hero. But um if you did the exact same thing in a corporate setting, then that's suddenly a very different kind of view point. >> And why that's a that's a really good point. Why do you think that is, Pap? Why do you think if if if if you call out a crime in the in the middle of the street, you know, your front page of the newspaper saying this person is is it, you know, like you say, walking on walking on water um because you you you

know, you stopped a crime in progress. But when you basically did almost the exact same thing at Wirecard to shine a light on exactly what was going on, some of the criminal activity, it's it's you're shunned and and not just shunned by, you know, the people who are doing this. Obviously, you would expect them maybe to be upset, but shunned by security regulators, you know, government organizations, like all all these other folks that you would have thought again, if it was the if it was a different scenario, you'd be front page of the newspaper, but all of a sudden,

because you're in a corporate environment, it's the complete opposite. Why do you think that difference exists? >> I guess it's because you're being paid to exist in the organizations. So because of that, there could be some kind of um feel that look, you know, you shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds. Um but the issue here is that that's fine. Like you may not be biting the hand that feeds, but if the hand is trying to kill you and it's stuck, then at some point that gets thrown out the

window, right? The the whole um dynamic changes. Uh so I think that's why organizations maybe perhaps because they're paying people they feel that people should have a sense of um you know untraded loyalty regardless of what's going on in the business to them and anything that's deemed as putting the business at risk um that's viewed as being disloyal or being a snitch or or untrustworthy person which is also kind

of crazy because even if you're organization doing pretty wrong things you would it would be in your interest to have people speak up. >> Absolutely. >> So you it's kind of like a a early warning system on yourself even as a fraudulent company, right? Like hey, you know, whatever you guys are up to, it's being extremely visible to your employees. So either you stop what you're doing or you may be super refining your criminal ways. I don't know. But um so that's that's why I'm saying you people all companies should be encouraging uh a kind of safe culture

to allow people to speak up because no matter how you slice and dice it, it's really in their own interest to have that flagged first and deal with it before, as you saw in the wire case and in many other cases, um it escalates outside and then you're playing you you find yourself in like a bigger mess, right? because now you've got legal PR nightmares to deal with and and a whole bunch of other issues. >> Absolutely. you know, and you know, and if you're where the board or you know, the audit committee or or or some of the

board senior leaders and and you know, again, and you there were people out there who were telling you that there were issues with you know, your CEO and things like that, you would certainly think that you would want to know about that um in order to in order to action uh in order to action uh what was going on. >> And and then maybe just talk a little bit as well, Pav, about your experience before Wire Card. Was there anything, you know, leading up to your experience before wire code that could prepare you for what was about to what was about to go down? Like I don't know if you worked

in an environment perhaps that had really good, you know, a good control environment, you know, good good good ethical standards. Obviously, you worked at one of the top law firms. I'm sure, you know, they um, you know, had had good processes and and procedures and and and and perhaps were world class in terms of how they did things from an ethical perspective. But was but we talked about your early days as a youngster, but then in your early professional days, was there anything that kind of prepared you for what you know or provided a benchmark for what you were about to get into a wire card?

>> I mean, like Korea's always been super interesting even from the law firm uh days, right? Because I worked at Scatteren, I've worked at Alan, Cliff Chance, and you know, this wasn't just in Singapore, but it was in the whole of Asia Pacific that I was covering. I spent a few years in the Middle East. This was after Dubai crashed. Um, and you know, the kinds of things I've seen uh in terms of cultural clashes, in terms of crazy ways of doing work, um, having had to navigate a lot of these things, uh, from a lawyer, as a lawyer in a law firm, uh, I think it

really opened my eyes because it's very easy to say what's black and white, but then when you're actually on the ground and you're dealing with customs, cultures, uh, and all kinds of other, uh, you know, things thrown in the mix, that's why it really, uh, puts a gray on the black, Right. Uh but then I think the question in wire chart's case or what a council should be able to do is obviously tell when that gray becomes a big red line. >> Yeah. >> And so having done and seen a lot of these kinds of crazy things uh from a

work perspective I think it's what probably built that experience uh I think in Wire's case it was very unique because you know I mean this was just flat out like a criminal organization. Um, and it's one thing for them to have been cooking the books and doing all kinds of other stuff, but you know, once it got into things like trying to make you go away, trying to attack your credibility, uh, do a HR case against you and all these things, I think that's where you realize like, okay, now this is a battle between you as an individual

and a bunch of people with no rules who don't play by the books, right? So I think that's where that was pretty unique. >> Well, so to speak and I guess >> well and to give people some perspective as well to give people some perspective think well what do you you know like from a safety perspective and things like that. Well, you know, one of the key executives, formerly of Wire Guard, you know, was, you know, there's basically evidence he's a he's a Russian spy who is now living in, you know,

somewhere in Moscow or or somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow, right? Like it's it's it's almost like some of this stuff at Wirecart is almost stranger than fiction, but it's true, right? is that you know um you were crossing path with some with some serious serious folks who uh you know again could could probably action you out relatively quickly if that's what they wanted to do like it's it's pretty scary. >> Yeah, it is on hindsight and that was what I was going to uh say previously. Yeah, I mean towards the end of my uh

what I was saying just now which is the fact that I was in Singapore I think it's what made it even uh environmentally or situationally more safe right because if I was in another country say I was in I don't know a third world country developing nation or even I mean even in the US where guns are so easily available >> um I could just have been knocked down and you know no one's going to think this is related to a company issue right it could just be a fight at a bar could be a random stabbing or an accident or like what you've seen in Boeing and Open

AI could just be like, oh, this guy suddenly decided to kill himself. >> So, uh that's that's the scary bit. Whereas obviously in Singapore like nothing much happens from a serious crime kind of state, right? You don't have uh you don't really see murders taking place or or any of these things. So, I think that's what maybe gave me that sense of security that what I was doing is fine. Um, but yeah, I think looking back, if you're talking about Russian Mafia, uh, GRU assets and and a

whole bunch of other stuff, um, that that's where you realize you've kicked the hornets's nest. Um, maybe unknowingly, and then then maybe to that extent as well, they must they must have known that, okay, this guy maybe didn't know and, you know, the way the company treated him was really foolish and that resulted in him having to blow the whistle. But because he actually didn't know the extent of the fraud and who the real players behind the scenes were, maybe let's just like put it aside, right? Um but then if he had I think it

would be very different if I actually knew like exactly what was going on and then now I'm trying to do this things. I think that's where it gets into a whole different territory where you know that's where revenge and other kinds of motives kick motives kick in. Um that's what my philosophy now is like hey kicked on its nest and this is what happened. Maybe now it's really time to just talk about lessons learned and what we can do what companies can do. Um instead of really trying to figure out and still poke holes and find out what happened at wire guard because then I

think you know whoever's behind all these things will be like okay this path is still not going away. Maybe it's time we deal with it. >> That's scary. That is that is terrifying frankly. Um, now people might be thinking, well, Pav, how did you end up here? You know, you have this wonderful background of of, you know, of of work experience working at all these big law firms. You, you know, you transitioned into the corporate world. Um, take us through that day where, you know, again, you're you're kind of, I don't know, sitting in your desk or or sitting at home having a cup of coffee and I don't

know if it was a recruiter or something you saw online that said, "Man, this wire card job looks cool. Um, I think I'm going to leave my, you know, leave wherever I am. I'm going to go I'm going to go there. Take us back to that day, Pat. What was going through your head uh when when the when the wire card opportunity first crossed your first crossed your desk? >> Yeah, I mean I was really happy because um after my time in the Middle East, I came back and I wanted to be in the fintech space and what I joined was a very uh I would say a seed stage kind of startup. So massive kind of I mean I was

desperate to be in the fintech space, right? Because as a kid I was always into tech and then from the law firm side I was doing corporate finance. So the finance and the tech and the fintech thing kind of made sense at a time. So I took a massive pay cut. I I went full for the experience. And then obviously where where wire came about, it was an opportunity to kind of rebalance everything. And given it was a listed company, it was a German company like everyone has that. Um I mean it's stereotypical, but it's meant to be a great place to work. Like everyone's supposed to be doing the right thing. They're supposed to be, you know, decent

people and stuff. So and the autonomy with the role was great. So recruiter called me and said hey this company is looking for um their first legal person to be looking after Asia Pacific and being on the ground here. Uh would you be interested? And that's when I said yeah for sure. Uh but when I looked at the website like I mean the company did payments right but I didn't fully grasp just off the website what they did and as a finance lawyer you think you know what payments is which is completely not true because it's a whole universe of

its own. when you get into it, that's when you're like, "Okay, >> this is learning from scratch." Again, um you know, having to grasp with concepts like what's merchant acquiring like that that term itself doesn't make any sense on the face of it like you know and then processing and um all these different payment things, right? Like visa, Mastercard rules, what are they? What are schemes and stuff? But I think what Wiredart said to me was like, look, we've expanded so crazily in the globally and especially in the

Asia-Pacific region. We really need someone to be our eyes and ears on the ground um to assist with that. And they just they had just purchased City Bank's merchant acquiring business in the region. So they also needed to kind of elevate to banking level standards um get licensed in a few jurisdictions and yeah so when I joined I thought like I guess this is a typical scenario where uh overexpansion or too quick an expansion has resulted in potentially integration issues resulting from

whether it's cultural aspects in the region or so on and so forth. So that's where I saw myself adding value like look I could navigate the company through like just objectively see what's going on and everyone's going to be um working towards the same objective which is trying to sync and synthesize this massively growing beast um into a very smooth flowing uh kind of organization. And when you look back in hindsight now, you know, and and you look back to that time when when the recruiter called you

and and you were starting to gather diligence and and talk to the folks this and that, when you look back in hindsight, do you look back and say, "Man, there's there's certain things that have happened where I should have known." You know what I mean? Like like certain red flags, and I'm talking about before you even, you know, put your name on the dotted line and said, "I'm going to join Wire Guard." I'm talking about in the diligence phase of of you trying to figure out if this was the right spot for you. Um, was there anything in hindsight that you wouldn't look back now, several years later, and say, "Man, like I like I like I that should have

tipped me off or or or or now when you look back and say, you know what, I could never have have expected that it was going to play out like that." >> Yeah, I don't think it it's possible. I mean, massively successful companies or actually even companies that are on a sudden growth trajectory, they always have a bunch of haters out there saying they're doing so and so. Um that was the case for wire card like you had Sean Salis doing attacks on them. Uh you had an infamous Zatara report which was released about a year before I joined.

Um but if that's debunked and nothing's come out of it other than a temporary hit of the stock price and you know a recovery that happens after that then what's going to happen? I mean what what are you to say about anything else right? And I think this is the whole issue with many organizations where it's it's really about difficult because even if a company is negatively in the press but if they are fighting it successfully then that's just a call you need to take to go in and see whether that's true or not but

for me that was not even like in my mind when I joined wireart it was really going in and having that autonomy having that mandate uh to look after 13 countries in the region and work for a regulated financial institution which is what Wford was. So yeah, I mean can always have that press but if you're successfully navigating it that was exactly what Wright was doing for 20 odd years um and very successfully in fact. So, and because I'm fascinated to know

if you had any advice for people out there who are, you know, obviously, you know, people get job opportunities all the time, you know, and and and the issue I think is even with AI, you know, you know, are some of these job opportunities even real, which is a totally different issue than really what we're what we're talking about here. But is there any advice for people out there to say you know you should do X Y and Z before you sign on the on on the dotted line or is it just you know what do as much research as you can talk to as many people as you can and then like you say you just have to make a call and and you

know what in your case again like you say Wirecard was a prominent German German organization this wasn't like a little startup this was like a prominent company within Germany that was thought to be the next tech you know Tesla or whatever you want to refer to it as this wasn't And you know, this wasn't like again some mom and pop shop. Um, but any any advice for people out there, Pab, in terms of uh, you know, if they're looking for that next job, what they can do to make sure that they don't, you know, end up at the wrong company.

>> I think it's really difficult because, uh, a lot of people look for jobs because of the paycheck, for example, they need to earn a salary. Um, and the, you know, economies have been terrible for the last several years, right? It's not and and that's actually also uh leads to one of the common questions that I face which is oh if it was so bad why didn't he just find another another job right which is also something that's leveled against many whistleblowers why did you stay in that situation when you could have just found another job and I

think this is the misunderstanding which is it's not so easy to just find another job especially the more senior you get you can't just like walk into another uh firm right like I'm not Elon Musk as someone so I think that's the reality which most people face um you want the job for the experience for uh the the the pay and a whole bunch of other factors. And then there's also the mindset that okay even if the company has got some bad press but if I'm going in and I'm not doing anything bad then what's the point? I mean why would I have to care about it? Uh it's also I

mean to use an example like when Binance was hit terribly in the news you still had so many people happy to join it after that because there's also that element if you're in legal risk compliance for example that okay the company has gone through a tough time maybe I can go in and try to be one of those that then makes it into a 2.0 zero and sets it on a different pathway, right? I can be part of that recovery, that restoration of integrity or whatever. Um, so it's quite complex. I mean, uh, yeah, and it also depends on the role. So that's another thing which

I think is very valuable to think about, especially for people in control functions like legal risk compliance. I always tell them like if something's really smells bad like it's truly dodgy then if you're in those roles you need to think twice because for example if you join a successful startup um that's doing some pretty crazy things in say crypto or somewhere um you must always understand that if the company fails the CEO would most likely get away with it people will say okay he was this

crazy guy a lot of money tried this it didn't work and he's off to his next venture but then the way your peers would look at you if you're in legal risk compliance or even internal audit. Um that's going to be a whole set of different questions because they'll be saying like what in the world were you doing in this company all this while like absolutely >> so that's something I think people need to think about. >> Absolutely. Well, you think about you know again in you know I think for a lot of entrepreneurs you know you start a company it goes bankrupt. It's kind of learning along the way. It's part of

the, you know, part of the process. But if you were a finance person and you were the chief financial officer of that company that went bankrupt, that's certainly not looked upon necessarily as saying, "Oh, hey, that's just part of the learning process." That, you know, you might lose your professional designation over that. You know what I mean? Like if suppliers are out of mud, like that's a again I totally it totally depends on the on on the role and and and how people on the outside view that if you know it's a great

point. I I I agree with that 100%. Um so you sign on the dotted line, you start a wire card. Um you know again you're you're you're responsible for the Asa Asia Pacific division. Lots of stuff going on. you know, entrepreneurial, even though it's large and and high-profile, it's it's still an entrepreneurial entrepreneurial company. Um, you know, so so you're, you know, I'm sure you're working long hours, you know, uh, stressful days, um, busy busy time. But when did when did the first red flags the the preliminary red flags

like was there again a couple things where you look back in hindsight once you got in the inside and started to get under the covers there where just the early days you're saying you know what like something something's not looking right here or the way I'm getting treated a little bit different than maybe you know how things were in the past. What were sort of that that early experience and was there anything once you started getting in there that started to just give you a bad feeling about things? I mean it was strange from the point of view of how things were done in the

finance um department for example. So I was told to get to know this guy called Ido Cory and um he was the Indonesian male that was effectively the international CFO um focusing very much also not just uh in South America but also on Asia Pacific and uh he was the first time I got to meet him because he's always on a plane. And I don't know what he's doing. I mean, as a CF on a flight every day, but um see he was we

went for lunch and because I was so to get to know this guy apparently, he was like super powerful, right? So when I met him, he seemed pretty normal like jovial and he introduced himself by saying during that conversation over lunch that he was married to a drugdeing family in Chicago. So, so to me like, okay, is this is he showboating or trying to like just pull a jab, right? Um, and I was like, what do you mean? So, I mean, I bust out

laughing. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, no, no, no. I'm really serious. Um, you know, when I when I met my my wife, my father-in-law for the first time, he put a gun on the table and he said, "If you don't treat my daughter-in-law properly, I mean, my daughter properly, I will Yeah. you know what's going to happen and then he went on to further emphasize how you know drug dealers are very rare in that part that city particularly and so you know and so on so to me it's like why are you telling me all this stuff right I mean

you do realize you're the CFO type guy and you James you're always on a flight from South America to Australia New Zealand and you're married to the underworld so if that's not a flag I don't know what is so that So that was the start of all these weird elements which eventually led to one of his own staff calling me one evening and saying she was afraid because she was being forced to do illegal transactions by this guy and she

didn't want to do them anymore and she really needs to speak to me. So that was how everything started um as the internal whistleblowing case at Wirefire. And when you get that call, like what are you thinking? Like are you thinking at that point that oh, you know what, she's just blowing things out of proportion. Like there's no way that this stuff exists. Um, you know what? Obviously, you want to pursue it. You know, you you're you're a lawyer. You have a have a you know, a professional requirement to to, you know, to figure out what really happened. But what's your first reaction when you get that

call? Is it is it you know what, there's no way this is happening. Um or is it you know what like based on everything I know like I you know this this is starting to uh this kind of makes sense. No, it was more of the uh smoking gun moment because a lot of things over time were just not adding up. Like for example, when I was looking at the financials of all the subsidiaries in Asia Pacific, um they were all lossmaking for the last four or five years, but yet Wire Kart was declaring

hundreds of millions in EBIT numbers for Asia Pacific as well as Europe. I mean virtually equivalent amount. source what everyone was wondering where these u where the money was coming from because on paper it was in the red right so and of course with guys like IDO and just weird stuff happening in general um flexible accounting in terms of numbers always being presented like we were going to do a license application in Hong Kong and the initial set of financials we got were very different from the next set of financials we got

and stuff like that so I think this was the time which changed everything because finally instead of just having bad smells, you're actually having something objective that's being presented to you by way of a whistleblower who's bringing evidence to you saying, "Look, this is what I have. This is what I need you to look at and tell me what to do." So, I think that's also very key to always remember, especially I think for people in our space, which is it's not normal. I would say hope I would hope it to go into

companies and look for dirt. I think yeah, things may not make sense ever. Uh in most companies, like there's always something that's missing here and there, but it shouldn't be normal to then go in and try to forensically dig into dirt for about your own company. You you're usually just trying to do your job until something objective comes to your desk where you're like, okay, now this is some meat and substance that I have which I can now work on and conduct an objective investigation. And I think this is when that opportunity presented itself. Um and yeah so that's how the

whole thing started effectively as the uh investigation that I that I undertook in the company >> and how did your first meeting with the with the girl go that was that was bringing these concerns to you like how did that meeting uh how did that meeting play out? Well, it we we did the meeting outside of the office, like away in a cafe, and she was very shaken up, like legitimate fear. Um, and she wasn't a junior

employee, she was very senior. Uh, and I think if and what made it worse was he was actually hired by the very person she's accusing of doing all these things. So I think that makes it even scarier because if you're you know you are in that situation you have real fears as to what if the person finds out would they take revenge not just on me but on my family uh say back home for example right so I think this is where it got real um and she was giving I mean because of the seniority the level of

explanation actually was good so a lot of stuff was being explained and right after that I you know I told her like look I will never reveal who you are, which I haven't until today. So, I called her Bobby as a as a cognate and I went back to my desk and straight away I called legal and I said, "Look," as in my supervisor is like, "Look, uh, we've got an internal whistleblind case. What do we do from here? It seems pretty serious." So, that's when I was given the go-ahhead to conduct an investigation over the course of the

next few weeks. uh engage an external law firm so that it it could be an objective analysis by a non-wire card party. Uh the understanding and and rationale was if a reputable law firm looks at forensic data that would force the company to act because they have no agenda. They have no political bias. They're just advising you based on what what they are looking at. Right? So that's exactly what happened. Unfortunately, when the general counsel got involved, which I was always told knew what was going on, um, but the day

I called her because Bobby was freaking out, wanted to go to the press and the police and all these things, that's when I realized she has no clue. Uh, and she was employee number 13 in the company. And that's when she said, "Oh, I have no idea what you're talking about, but just send me what you have and we'll deal with it." and the her way of dealing with it was to take everything and run to the board and tell them, do you know what's going on? >> And when you're going through this, are you thinking at this point that, hey, look, like the way this is going to play

out is that, you know, they were going to do, like you say, a full investigation. This ADO guy's going to be fired and everything is going to be um, you know, everything is going to be okay. um like how did the investigation ultimately come to completion and was it at that point that you were kind of in a degree of shock as to how things actually played out maybe compared to how you expected things to play out? I mean, I thought it was a slam down case because we were given access to the inboxes from day one of Edo and a couple

of his uh senior folks and what we saw in there was just like I mean it's just there's no irrefutable evidence you know things like them emailing logos to themselves and creating fake invoices, fake contracts, u roundtrip funds, sending money to themselves and stuff. So this is like slammed up like I would say even half normal company would have suspended them pending investigation but that never happened right so even the preliminary report from the law firm listed potentially 15 offenses in there

I would say uh we're talking like money laundering forgery uh all criminal breach of trust like all these kinds of things and um yeah they that was what went to the general counsel and she didn't act on it in fact what then happened was they started trying to find a way to to tweak the investigation to become a gap analysis exercise where because they didn't want to fire the law firm. They knew people like me knew what's going on. They thought that okay maybe now the law

firm can carry on digging and showing us all the various ways we are screwing up and so we can go fix it. So that was what eventually happened and in the meantime in parallel to that that's where they decided okay let's spend the next few months trying to force path out the company uh by making his life as difficult as possible and just to be clear like during this time not only was no one fired or suspended was actually promoted there was a global email that went out promoting him to VP accounting

and controlling for all the hard work that he did um and that was the ludicrousness um and just upside down elements of what was going on in the company >> and and during the time did you have any interaction with some of the more senior folks in Germany where you could you know have an opportunity to can share your concerns you know one-on-one or or was that never part of the never part of the equation you weren't really permitted to speak to the the you know the kind of that that that the the core HQ in Germany

>> no because I was reporting to the legal team in Germany so that to me wasn't ready to HQ. >> I see. Um >> but when they started to go after me, that's when you realize you can't do anything because it's very sensitive, right? The information you have, the investigation you've done, you're not meant to share it with your colleagues. You're not meant to discuss it. You're not even meant to um do anything. So that's the whole isolation aspect of being in that situation because even though the company was now starting to take active steps like you know shouting

and screaming at me in Singapore the director here giving all kinds of threats and then creating this fake HR case against me which took three months to investigate. Uh so all this type of you're just fighting it on your own because you can't say anything. You can't go to your colleagues who are wondering what the hell's going on. You can't tell them this is why the company is doing this to me because of this investigation and all that stuff because then you're breaching your professional obligations and that itself can get you fired. So I think

that was where it was very difficult and obviously you can't go outside and talk to your friends about it either. Um so then question is what do you do in that situation and the only thing I could do in that situation was make sure that the law firm was able to carry on doing the fuller investigation. and just really withstanding the heat because and that that goes to what I said earlier like the people will say why didn't you leave at this point when it's so obvious like why do you have to stay there and to me it's because the

law firm was saying look just hang in there it's just a matter of time the more we come across the more obvious it is and so let's just hang in there because at some point the company would be forced to act and you'll be validated so that's why I was just withstanding through all these things until Ido came back one day after the fourth or fifth month and he wanted to have lunch again and that's when he said look we want to send I know you've been very busy the last few months um but we want to send you to Jakarta on a

business trip and um yeah let's see when can you go and I was like what do you mean what's the trip for he and when is it he said it doesn't matter when is it like whether it's in 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months you have to go like you have nothing to worry about because you know who my father-in-law is, right? And that's where >> and and that's where it it became real that the company's trying to do this. And what made it worse and this was now my last week in wireart was because during that week I received two

anonymous phone calls on my landline say hello is this pathill we understand you're being told to go to Germany I mean to Jakarta don't go you won't come back and they put the phone down. So that's where obviously I didn't want to go and I told the director in Singapore I'm not going. And that's when the company was very happy because finally they had a business reason to force me to resign or fire me which is I'm not going on a business trip. So that's how I resigned. >> Jeez, that is that is just absolutely

terrifying. I there's no other and people say like why didn't you leave? Like look like the reality is is you know probably 90% of the people maybe would leave in that situation but Pav I'll bet you in your situation there's a part of it where you want to see this through. Like when you see something wrong you want to write it. You know what I mean? And and I can't believe that you would have thought that everybody in the company was like conspiring against you. You know what I mean? Like you must have thought, man,

there's somebody in here that actually wants to know the truth. You know what I mean? that again when you see something when you see a crime that's happening in the streets yeah 90% of the people will probably turn and walk the other way but then yeah you have those 10% of the people that they do it because it's the right thing to do you know what I mean like there's an element of again just wanting to be on the right side of the law you know what I mean >> yeah but what can these people do it

themselves right like no one wants to go if if the if these things coming from the very top. Um, and I think this is really important because I think this is also why a lot of frauds continue for so long uh is because if the company's doing well, if everyone's earning a good salary, if nothing untoward is there, shareholders are happy, management is happy, it's whether the staff are happy or not is irrelevant, but everyone's winning in that sense, right? So why would anyone want to then now go and you

know try to turn things upside down or just find this issue even if it's an issue why why waste time dealing with it and I think that was a very good strategy externally from wire standpoint as well because they were telling regulators for 20 years like and and also their investors like why are you guys complaining look at how successful we are look at how fast we're growing and ironically is because we are growing so fast that we've got all these teething problems uh and then we need to catch it. I mean we need to fix. So yes, the legal and compliance needs to be

fixed like in every company but just give us a moment to do that and that moment just never appeared right. So I think that was how they got away with it which is they tried to paint the whole thing as uh they are victim of their own success type issue. Uh and people fell for it because why why the company everyone's earning I mean at one point it had 40,000% growth right if you look historically backward. So then why would Germany complain? Why would the regulators and investors complain? I mean it's a success story is a PayPal of

the of the whole of Europe. >> Um and now you've got like a couple of employees that came across certain issues. No one wants to get involved in that kind of stuff, I think, because then their jobs on the line. And at the end of the day, like from a purely rational economic standpoint, everyone's just acting in their own self-interest, whether you're an employee or you're someone else, whether you're an industrial employee or or anyone else, right? So, I think that's also why it wouldn't have made much sense. Well, people can empathize with you and like, you know, just give you a shoulder to

cry on, so to speak. No one's really, I think, going to be that wear that cape and and go fight your battles for you in these kinds of situations. >> And and what was the decision process to kind of be a a there's what you know you you tried to push this case through. You you tried to work with the the law firms, but at some point you made the decision to say, "Look, I need to reach outside of of Wire Card in order to bring this, you know, to the attention of others." What was the thought process and and and and kind of the the pros and cons? cuz I could imagine you're

probably thinking about this saying, "Man, there's a lot of pros and there's a lot of cons to going through this step." What was the decision-m process surrounding that? >> Yeah. So, once I left the company, they they still didn't stop. So, they were sending people to follow me and my mom and then they were setting up all these fake interviews with friendly firms because they knew I needed a job. So, these firms will reach out to me and say, "Hey, we are looking to hire this role. Would you be interested?" And during that interview, they would just ask me, they'll spend the whole

interview time asking me why I left Wire Guard. And they'll say things like, "Oh, don't worry. You know, we've always heard like weird stuff about the company. It's okay. You can tell us." We will also then understand why you only lasted, you know, while you're in the company and stuff like that. But I I didn't cave because I knew why they were doing that. So that I breached like an NDA or a leing agreement or something and then the company would have the opportunity to continue making my life hell by suing me for doing that. So, and Pav, I just want to ask you a question just just on that.

Why? Like that to me makes no sense. To me, the best thing that could have happened for Wirecard is that Pav Gil goes off, gets a new job, and never thinks about Wirecard ever, ever again. Like, to me, that would have been like the best outcome. Why go through and try and make your life a living hell? Cuz they're just going to get you worked up even like if if you remain unemployed, like what do they care? I would have thought the best thing for them is that Pav goes off, gets a new job and and never thinks about Wire Guard ever

again. >> Yeah, exactly. So, I think it falls down to arrogance, especially on the local director side in Singapore because, you know, it he came into the company because they bought his um small payments company out in Singapore and Malaysia and um I think he was the one he got into that whole inner circle, became rich and it got to his head kind of thing probably. And so I think he was the kind of guy that would tell Hugh that don't worry I'll deal with this guy. Leave it to me. He's just like, you

know, whatever. He's not a threat. I'll sort it out and I'll just kind of like play with him, right? Which is why he did the HR case and he was doing the shouting and screaming. And then also I think after I left the company, he probably thought it'll be some kind of like I don't know just part of his continuing uh behavior to try to do this. Um so ironically I think if not as you said like if all they had said was look it's not working out why don't you go on gardening leave you'll get paid until you find another job we'll make

sure you give a good reference >> um none of these things would have happened right that so it circles back to the very first thing that we said on this podcast which is um you don't want to create that angry isolated disgruntled employee who finds that he has no choice now but to take you down from the outside it's completely avoidable because once you create these kinds of wounded uh people then there's bound to be some kind of impact but I think once you also are very successfully

criminal so to speak you think you're too big to fail or you've been getting away with it for like so long I think that's where also you have that sense of I don't know overconfidence that nothing's going to happen and all this will be noise dealt with it a million times like what is this one person going to do right if he does, we will maybe sue him or we will continue to just I mean in a weird way it's like no different from bullies, right? Like bullies will just keep having a go at you until one fine day they meet the wrong person that just fights back and

suddenly comes crashing down and yeah they So I think that's exactly what happened. Completely avoidable. Um and also why I spend my time now telling companies stop doing this, stop creating more paths, you don't need to. Um, and yeah, that's probably what happened. >> So, you're out there trying to get another job. They're trying to put blocks every single way. You know, you can't interview anywhere without them giving you a million questions of Wire Card. And like you say, they're they're trying to almost ent trap you into

disclosing confidential information that would then result in a lawsuit from Wire Card. Again, that would be an incredibly stressful stressful situation. And at what point do you say look like you know I need to take this a step further now um and and really you know start to disclose what's what's going on. So what was kind of the thought process behind that step? >> Yeah. So at this point my mom got really upset. >> Yeah. >> So I think that's where the thought process kind of got accelerated at least

on her side when she one day said look the country is not letting us move on. you're the sole bread winner of this family and I've had enough. I'm going to do something about it and teach this company a lesson. So that's where things went very downhill for wire current which is cuz they literally pissed off a angry mom. I would say >> step in you know it's never a good idea in any context right just don't upset your your mom or your wife. So I would

say it's typical I mean it's such a perfect definition of or example of house has no fury like a woman's corn right so this is exactly what happened in this case she decided to be the tiger mom and said look I'm going to find a way to sort this out >> and so that I I I left her I told her look I'm going to leave you to your own devices just remember that I am a lawyer and I'm still trying to look for another job. Uh so very quickly she made friends with um CLA Brown who's the journalist

behind the 1 MTB uh scandal, the government of Malaysia scandal and CLA said that she's she knows the Financial Times has been working on this for the last 5 years and getting nowhere. So that's how but they have the resources to deal with the case of this magnitude. So that's how CLA put us in touch with Dan uh Dan Mcro at the Financial Times and yeah one day I came back and my mom said look we're meeting the FT this weekend why why would I speak to a journalist

right like I have a lawyer I don't even trust these guys she's like no we have to do something and in fact the strategy actually was thought out so we sat and we debated this and the thought process was quite I mean it's very practical So, so what's the what are the other options? The first option is you can go to the police um and lodge a report of fraud and all these things. But then the issue here is that whether it's the police or as a regulator, for example,

you may file it, they may take your report, but they could also very simply or very likely just chuck it at the back of the queue and then it just sits there until someone decides to actively open an investigation. So then you're just left having to continue for a unknown future um battling the company. It's a kind of status quo in a way, right? You have no power over the process. And in fact, you could also be exposed because you never know like someone may call the company and say, "Hey, guess what? One of your employees now made this part

like what do you have to say?" And immediately the company knows who's who that person is, right? Um so she said the other alternative would be the media and because Singapore is a very hyper sensitive country to foreign press reporting on adverse events taking place within the country. So he said if we go to someone like BFT uh and they actually if they actually publish something Singapore will be forced to act and that's exactly what happened. So you know within 3 weeks of the first three

articles that the FT published the Singapore police raided Wart there's a very public radios in the papers why heard claimed it wasn't a raid and they invited 20 you know policemen to the office one morning in plain clothes everywhere just come in and take their mobile phones and their their hardware that that's a crazy thing like we are laughing about it but people believed and the stock market didn't really I

mean it reacted but you know they believed that what Ward said was is not a rage so that's how insane it is now and and were you surprised you know with with these early articles now like like did you think look once the Financial Times starts writing about what I have to say like this whole house of cards is going to come crashing down that's not again what happened is I think it took a little bit of time were you surprised that you know things didn't maybe play out immediately the way you kind of thought they were going to play out once once things hit the

Financial Times. And you'd say, "Look, it's no longer Pav Gill who's saying this. Um, it's the Financial Times, which is a very reputable organization and they're not going to put something out unless it's been vetted and and reviewed and and and backed by evidence." Um, you know, were you surprised things didn't unravel quickly after after, you know, articles in the Financial Times? >> No, they did. But what I didn't expect was the way the German regulator would react. Right? So right off the bat, like

on the first day of the first article, uh they said this is a this is not a wire card problem. This is a short selling problem and it's an Asian problem. So they went out their way to vindicate wire card, which is not what regulators would do typically. It's not the playbook. The playbook would be just to make the generic comment saying we understand allegations have been made against one of our listed companies. We are going to investigate but till then we have no comment. You don't you don't off the off you know right off the top of it say this is not the company's

problem right without even having checked anything. And what made it worse and really upset me was the fact that before the first article went out, we had actually sent a dossier of all the key contracts with the explainer to the regulators in Germany and Singapore and all these different countries including the auditors uh of wire card and why they then behaved the way they did made it dubious because either someone didn't bother to read or they just didn't want

to look at this company for whatever said and that's why and also they then started going to investigate DFT right and they banned short selling on wire stock and all that stuff so that's when I realized like look this is not a battle against wire current anymore you are actually fighting multiple powerful entities whether it's the auditors or it's the regulators or it's whoever that's refusing to want to investigate and is protecting this company right they're actively protecting them and they're going after people that are exposing them and also the Germans

looking at this from as though the I mean the vibe was that okay it's a jealous UK paper trying to take down our fintech success story maybe pro Brexit sentiments were still there so that's when I realized okay I need to do more I can't rely on the ST alone I need to change the perception from within Germany and that's when I reached out to Sudoc the um the newspaper and also I created a Twitter profile where I was starting to post things that journalists couldn't post uh And then it took one

and a half years uh to really bring the company down with all these various uh facets and and channels that I was using to try to coordinate these things. And yeah, it was it wasn't an easy time. I mean, my mom had a stroke because she was so stressed. And as part of the stroke scans, they found she had stage two lung cancer to cut off half a lung. Um and that's when it became very personal. And I think that was also the motivator as to why really had to be seen till the end. because once we went down this path like I really wanted to

make sure that uh there was an outcome out of it what the outcome was we didn't expect which is the company completely collapsing as a as a top down fraud um but it did right so and just to conclude on a very long response I think everyone should also remember that wire card is a case of a rare case of successful whistleblowing because you know a lot of times whistleblowers get exposed in the process they get retaliated against. The whole machinery of the corporate versus

the individual kicks in. You know, law firms, lawsuits, um they they drain your financial resources, they ruin your reputation. But I think in this case is uh different because I was anonymous all the way until a year after the company crashed. So that's where I came out publicly the day the Sky documentary, you know, why a billion lie came out and I was in the documentary or amongst the documentary. So that was the day we decided to say like okay it's safe enough to come out um and let everybody know who it is. >> Do you think you could have do you think

again you talk about the stress like I just it's unimaginable. Um you know you talked about your mom and I can just imagine the stress on you would just again like you just it's unimaginable. Do you think you could have pulled off and done the same thing if you actually lived in Germany? Um as opposed like at least in Singapore, you know, look, you know, the Singapore government like raids the offices, you know, the second they find uh issues there. Obviously, they didn't do that in Germany. Um you know, it's almost like they took the, you know, the opposite approach. Do you

think you've been able to to go through the same process if you actually lived in lived in Germany itself? >> No, I don't think so. I think Germany was a stakeholder the whole thing somehow. Um cuz it makes no sense. Like honestly if we had given the information on a platter all anyone needed to do was just look if you looked you would find a whole lot of stuff right like at the end of the day even when we look back wire was saying its money came from just

three companies. None of these three companies in reality existed as a type of company that would be able to generate not only 500k or 1 million in revenue which led 1.9 billion in profits right so anyone just needed to do that uh but they didn't so then it goes to the whole question as to whose fault was this right was it failure of internal controls you know legal risk compliance uh supervisory board which exists in Germany or was it a failure of external

agencies like the auditors um market participants for example uh who kept still still till the last day saying by wire stop or the regulators and law enforcement in in Germany um why these guys didn't want to act why despite having the information to act they didn't want to act I think these are all troubling indicators um and if I was in Germany there's no way I'll dedicate that for sure because if I mean you're right in the in the lion's den right Yeah, you absolutely

just Yeah. No way. A lot of debt unscathed. >> And you know, I don't know, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back. Again, I don't know if there's a straw, but obviously, you know, when they went looking for that 2 billion of cash and they couldn't find it. Um, you know, that was certainly one of the events, but what was, you know, what was the kind of the day of, you know, where you felt, you know, kind of validated? Um was it was there a particular day where you say you know what finally the truth has has has come to light?

>> Yeah the day the company crashed. >> Yeah. >> I mean I was actively following it because I was active on Twitter again like all these things I was doing uh as a sidekick. I actually was working in jobs after that. So it's great for stress relief I guess like do your work and then figure out how to expose wire guard in the evenings u and you know Twitter and stuff is perfect for these kinds of things because you can be completely untraveled and uncensored there. Um, but when it actually did

crash, I think because it was such a it was such a insane journey from the inside to the outside and then a different kind of outside where you're now coordinating these things to see it really come crashing down I think was just indescribable in terms of uh outcome and validation and also you know with pride um not because he took down a company but because the truth prevailed at the end of the day.

Absolutely. Right. Like >> I think that was that was the it's just this whole mix of emotions which >> yeah this can't be described and it's unbelievable to even think about now. >> So people always say like do you regret what you did? I was like, "No, >> I mean, everyone goes through crazy stuff, right? But it's just what you make out of it and what you do out of it >> that shapes uh who you are as a person." Were Were you surprised to the extent of it? Because,

you know, like it would appear that, you know, Wire Cut again grew up to about 24 billion euros in market cap. Pretty large company. Um, and it would appear that the real Wire Card was a fraction of that. like it like they're almost like there wasn't even anything there to begin with or not much maybe a little bit of a payment processing business. I think it sounds like again during the during the wind up process maybe they sold off a business unit here and there but really there wasn't much there um to justify that 24 billion euro market cap. Were you surprised of the extent of it?

Um it's almost like you know the old saying you know you start pulling a string back and like like the whole thing just starts to unravel. You know what I mean? like pulling one little one little string. Could you have ever thought that it was literally like the whole company that was that was at you know that was basically um you you know part of this whole this whole matter. >> No, I think that's also a point which is still unknown like that's the billion dollar question to put it that way is

whether there was something or there was nothing. So obviously the FT and the official narrative um is that this whole business didn't exist. The monies never existed. But then on the flip side there's the the other side the defense side which says no it did. But then the question is where and to whom did the monies go to? Who are these people who were uh dealing with these cons? Where what's the start and end point? Right? And I think that's where it's a catch 22 for Germany

because if you say that Barca didn't exist, I mean in terms of the business and everything was a was a sham then that's that's the safer option but it's still it's still messed up. Um but if you say that it did exist and then the question is okay and who are the recipients of all these um I mean it's flatout money laundering type issues >> uh who received those funds and it's hard to also say the company had no money. I mean it definitely had a lot of money because otherwise it wouldn't have expanded in such a way. It couldn't have bought City Bank's breed bank card

business in the US. It couldn't have bought their merchant acquiring business in APEC. Um and it couldn't have acquired all these random companies like I mean there's an extent to to doing that kind of fraud right at such a huge scale without being exposed. And so I think and also not to forget like people had spent many years trying to expose this company through very reputable shortselling attacks and questions. But there clearly was a concerted uh effort

on the part of many powerful players to not want to look or to shield this company from external scrutiny. So the biggest question is why? Like I mean if this company really had no money in it then why would people be taking such great lengths to protect it right? So I think that's where we still don't know and that's what the defense of the CEO Marcus Brown is. He's saying no this thing is the monies existed. There's no way they didn't exist. And just to put a scale like if you actually go into the

company and you forensically analyze a lot of the data sets of the financial transactions you can use even today you can use the best AI software you can screen all of them uh they would say that the transactions are all legitimate and we are not talking like a data set of 200,000 we're talking about a million like at least a six-digit data sets of pervutations and variations in transaction volume right so in order to create that kind fake stuff. You either need to have a very sophisticated

military intelligence type backing to do that because it's just not something you can get like a warehouse of of people to come and sit and create. Uh it's just not possible. And what you know your first or one of your first points of contact there we talked about was uh was Ido there. What happened to him? Like uh like we know one of the the CEO sounds like he's on trial. Um and and you know we'll we'll you know the jury is still out in terms of what is going to happen to him. The other you know kind of the

co-CEO or or CEO or whatever. It sounds like he's kind of made an escape into into Russia. Um but what ever happened to Ido? Where where is he in the is uh is you know will will he ever face any you know face up to what he had done or where where's where is he now? Well, he's on the Interol red list. So, after the third FT article came out, he absconded from Singapore. Um, before the raid, just a day before the raid or day

or two before the raid. So, apparently he was sent to Dubai on a business trip. They paid for like a villa for him for 6 months and stuff. Um, and from what I heard, he's probably still there with a new name called Henry. That's apparently what he goes by now. Um, but he's definitely on the red list. So is Yan Marcel the COO uh who's been very busy like I mean Yan Marle was even in the UK press like a couple of months ago for being the mastermind behind this

Bulgarian firing that was happening over there. So yeah I mean it's so at the end of the day like what was Wired's purpose? Was it a moneyaundering operation between I don't know Austria, Germany and Russia? Um but the question is if so then for who? Um it's not normal like I mean he but the way Marcel escaped from the country was even insane. Like the company has crashed. Two days later he's having

dinner with uh Austrian intelligence. They fly him out on a private jet to Barus and then he makes his way to Russia. Like you don't if your if your company just crashed and you're the CEO COO, you don't call someone in intelligence and say fly me out the country because this has happened to Ward, right? They would only help you if you were an ally of sorts or you had involvement with them somehow or you were critical to what was happening that they can't let you get arrested and

stuff. And why Germany didn't put arrest warrant out for him is just another question. Um so yeah it's it's there's all this other side of it other than you know okay this was a financial company and then it crashed and then that's it. Uh but I think there's a lot of interesting questions that have not been answered uh in that sense and maybe we never will find out. Do you place the blame at one individual or one organization or anything, Pav, when you when you kind of think through it all? Um, or is it really, you know, there's enough blame to go around here? There's

a lot of there's a lot of parties that that share in the blame of of everything that happened at Wire. >> I don't know. I mean, it's just a blame thing, right? like a group of people that created a business that's had its roots in porn and other vice industries. I mean, if that's the birth of a company and it is what made the company rich for the first 5 years, obviously there's a lot of connections to people in those industries which tend to be pretty shady. And then the

question is then they got a reverse the way they got listed was also questionable. It was a reverse merger with a default telephone operating company from what I recall. Um that's how they got listed and then you so so whether it's by design if it's by design that this was meant to be a fraudulent company from day one or a company engaging in nefarious activities somehow financial or otherwise then that's not something you can blame because that's what the founding team or

the the people that ran the company set actively set out to do right so it just happens that I think from their perspective given the size of of what happened in terms of the growth the number of employees now the scale of the business I don't think in their wildest dreams they thought like oh one day this one person in Singapore would have direct forensic access to inbox data and other kinds of information that would actually bring the company down because

all the while they always were fending off attacks from external parties who could say whatever they want but didn't have like hard evidence Right. So I think that's what they never kind of foraw. So I think that's also why when the FD started publishing again with the once I gave them the information they probably thought the same thing like oh my god Financial Times is back again. Let's just deal with it. So I think that's what they weren't prepared for and really took them by surprise. >> Got it. Now to wrap things up here, you

know, maybe just talk a little bit about the Confide platform because I'd be interested to know kind of what inspired you to start this initiative and and and how the Confide platform, you know, is hopefully a a critical tool that will, you know, again, you know, maybe play a part in in preventing the next Wire Card, you know what I mean? Or at least uh, you know, a bad business is doomed to fail. Um, but certainly not the way, you know, Wire Card went down. maybe just talk about what inspired you to create uh Confide

and and and kind of the the slot that it's it's tended to fill in in the corporate world. >> Yeah, I mean I was doing all these global keynote speaking events um discussing what companies can do, what processes they can look at, you know, what business leaders can do in terms of culture, u compliance aspects and all these things to prevent another wire guard. And then the EU whistleblowing directive came out. Um, and basically that directive is so extensive, it pretty much renders just your policy of

whistleblowing ineffective. You need to have way more stuff in order to deal with these things. So given I was going around having all these talks and I've seen how companies um how challenging it is for organizations to get information from their staff or even their vendors and it or whatever is happening. I mean if you think of even internal audit it's so hard to actually get information that something bad is going on somewhere in the operational or supply chain. Um so I've seen those challenges right and I've seen it from the whistleblowing side. So it just hit me why not put my experience into a product that would

benefit PE companies people and lawmakers that's how confight was born. So what it is is I think the biggest problem today is if you ask any company if something has happened like a bad thing has happened do you have a single source of truth to go to to see how something started who dealt with it and how it ended the question is the answer is probably no but they would say we have various solutions doing different things we have for whistleblowing just a hotline or web form for grievances we've got like the HR tool or whatever process

uh for AML investigations we got screening tools and all these things, right? But there's no one-stop shop that deals with all this stuff. So that's what we built. So basically, Confide is an end to end um case management solution that deals with various operational compliance things such as whistleblowing. It's end to end receive, manage, resolve, and comply. You know, not only receiving it, but being able to carry out the whole investigation on platform in one place for that audit trail. Same for grievances. Uh that's another product. oftentimes your

grievances chucked into whistleblowing lines. It's a different policy, different workflow, different reporting line to the board. Uh when you're reporting metrics, um things like conflicts of interest management is super manual, right? Like how do you raise a complaint about a COI case, how do you if you're a bank like give approvals like someone wants to invest in a stock, how do you give that approval, tag it to a T plus2 timeline, how do you then track the trading desk? So all these things are what we have created uh so that there's just one place to see all the risks and anything

that comes in um you have a bird's eye view on on what's going on. So that's effectively what we're building uh at the com 5 platform. >> Yeah. And you know and the reality is is if Wirecard had something like that um maybe they're still around today. You know like you say it is in the company's best interest to deal with these issues properly. um you know, maybe if they if they listened to you and they had a platform like that, maybe they could have dealt with it and maybe they would still be around. Um and obviously a lot

smaller perhaps than what they were, but it wouldn't have played out the way it the way it played out. Um you know, uh because cuz like you say, I what you said right off the right of this call, I I totally agree is is that it's the company's best interest to get to the truth and to and to figure out what happened, not to. It's always the cover up is worse than the crime. You know, there's certain truths in life. I think that's one of them. Uh is is that the cover up is always worse than the crime. You know what I mean? So, and the other thing too is look, a lot of these big

companies when you have 50, 60, 100,000 employees, things are going to happen. You you know um things are going to happen that you know, but it's how you deal with them that's important. You know what I mean? So, anyway. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But Pat, thank you. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you taking the taking the time um hearing your hearing your story. I would encourage people to check out um Pav, check out the Confi platform and um and and you know learn a little bit more about about Pav's story at Wirecard. Uh because again is it it

is something again extremely courageous to do in order to speak up. Uh and again it's not just the stress of you know dealing with colleagues and stuff. It's literally at one point you feared for your life um and even your mother's life uh which is pretty scary stuff. Um but but Pat, thank you very much for joining us today. We really appre appreciate you taking the time. >> Yeah, thanks for having me.