Exposure – Michael Woodford

With the children away at university and boarding school, we chose to base ourselves in our London apartment, rather than our home in Southend. The Butlers Wharf enclave to the south-east of Tower Bridge has seen many crimes over the centuries. Dickens loved strolling through the squalor – in the company of the river police – to make notes. Arch-villain Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist lived here and Our Mutual Friend begins in the mist and murk of its creeks, where a lighterman tries to fish corpses out of the river.

The warehouses that once stored cardamom, coffee and caraway seeds are now office suites and luxury flats. There was no easy access to our apartment, which is many floors up. Having declined the suggestion of policemen with machine guns standing sentry, we were told that our telephone numbers were flagged for priority response – if we dialled 999 an armed response team would be with us in a few minutes. Knowing this provided a lot of comfort. There were also moments of black comedy.

One night our neighbours went away leaving behind their teenage children – who threw an impromptu party. It had migrated outside and they were jumping on the adjoining metal balcony. The noise was unbearable. After several polite requests were ignored, at 2.30 a.m. I reached for the phone. ‘What are you doing?’ Nuncy demanded. ‘Calling the police.’ She quickly made me see sense. Did a few drunk teenagers really deserve to have their party broken up by police bearing machine guns? Come to think of it, they wouldn’t upset their neighbours again.

7. The Three Musketeers Whistleblowers are often isolated. In the school playground whistleblowing is known as snitching, and snitches are no longer trusted by the other children. They are lonely and contemptible. Once I had been ousted from Olympus, my relationship with many of those left on the inside became strained. Former close colleagues whom I’d known for years suddenly treated me like some sort of leper and studiously avoided all contact with me.

There seemed to be an insidious pressure on some to have nothing to do with me. I had been deemed a contaminant. I was suddenly persona non grata and couldn’t understand just what I had done wrong. I was not totally alone. In London I had Nuncy, my family and friends. But I urgently needed support, especially to help deal with the Japanese media and authorities. My inability to understand the Japanese language would have made it almost impossible to bring those responsible to account. Luckily, in Tokyo I had my two musketeers: Koji and Waku.

The pair would stand beside me during the long months of struggle ahead, never protesting at the unreasonable demands I placed upon them and their families.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008 Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa Penguin China, B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in 2012 by Portfolio / Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Copyright © Michael Woodford Associates Limited, 2012 All rights reserved LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Woodford, Michael, 1960— Exposure: inside the Olympus scandal : how I went from CEO to whistleblower / Michael Woodford. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN: 978-1-101-60633-9 1. Woodford, Michael, 1960-2. Olympus Corporation–Management. 3. Optical industry–Corrupt practices–Japan. 4. Whistle blowing–Japan. 5. Corporate governance–Moral and ethical aspects–Japan.

I. Title. HD9707.J34O499 2012 338.7’62136092–dc23 2012036876 Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON Dedicated to Koji Miyata and Waku Miller, the best friends a person could ever have. Contents Dramatis Personae Prologue 1. Rumours and Revelations 2. ‘Who do you work for?’ 3. Antisocial Forces 4. Showdown 5. Escape Intermission 6. Homecoming 7. The Three Musketeers 8. The Big Apple 9. Return 10.

Rotten to the Core 11. Winning the Argument, Losing the War 12. Rising Suns Also Set 13.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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