“I started looking for a new job because of what was said in these exit interviews. I’m not comfortable,” Williams said of her decision less than a year after joining the company. But it was a follow-up letter from a sales whistleblower that provided “a WTF moment for me,” he said.
Initially, he cast doubt on the allegation that the company was selling inventory it didn’t have because employees had filed denunciation complaints at two previous companies.
Selling inventory and hiding customers is at the heart of a fraud case against Outcome Health co-founders Rishi Shah and Shradha Agarwal, and former chief financial officer Brad Purdy, who is on trial in federal court.
Williams said the whistleblower’s detailed statements about widespread customer deception beyond the original example led him to recommend that the firm hire an outside law firm to investigate the claims and establish a compliance program.
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If those claims are true, with that result under-delivering advertising to clients for nearly a decade, Williams worries that the liability will undermine his plans to go public. company.
“If you haven’t fulfilled your contractual obligations, that’s going to be an issue in due diligence,” Williams told the jury. “These are the things that will come out that will absolutely spark a sale, IPO or fundraising.”
Unbeknownst to Williams when he left the company in early 2017, the result had raised nearly half a billion dollars from a prominent investment group that included Goldman Sachs, Google, and the Governor’s former venture capital fund. Illinois JB Pritzker.
Williams said he didn’t tell Shah, Agarwal or Purdy that cheating was the reason he left to join an e-commerce startup. “I didn’t tell them why,” he testified. “I told them I was leaving to pursue what I was passionate about. I just wanted to leave. I didn’t want to create more friction. At the time I didn’t care. I just wanted to leave. I chose children. path of least resistance.”
The fraud allegations were made public about nine months after Williams left. Investors sued Shah and Agarwal not long after to get their money back.
This story first appeared in Crain’s Chicago Business.
