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Fired! Veritas CFO lies on CV

The humiliation...

The Register has a new Enterprise Storage Channel

Veritas is Latin for 'truth', a commodity in short supply in the resume of Kenneth Lonchar, chief financial officer of the storage software firm called Veritas.

Mr. Lonchar is - ahem - resigning after he was caught lying about an MBA from Stanford Business School. He said he had one: the fib caught up with him today, courtesy of an email tip-off from outside the company. Lonchar said it's best for all concerned that he goes, but we can't see that the upside for him - disgrace, the loss of a fat wage check and bonuses and stock options and all the perquisites that America's plutocrats demand and command as their birthright.

Veritas odium parit

So why did Lonchar do it? Can't answer that one, but maybe he wouldn't have got the job he wanted. People without degrees in the US have glass floors, not ceilings. And people without good degrees from expensive universities find it a lot harder to climb very far up the corporate ladder.

Or maybe Lonchar was just a congenital cheat. Which would bode very poorly for Veritas. what are we to make of Veritas' recent certification, signed inter alia by Lonchar that its accounts are correct? So if Lonchar was lying about his qualifications, was he cooking the Veritas books? No way, the company says.

In a conference call, CEO Gary Bloom said Lonchar's departure had "no bearing on the accuracy of our financial statements or the quality of our internal controls and processes".

The company is appointing Jay Jones, a longtime Veritas executive, as interim CFO. It hopes to sign up a full-time replacement by the end of the year. But no fibbing, right?

Lonchar's former employer points out that it inherited him when it bought OpenVision in 1997. Such a falsification from a new senior employee would never survive the scrutiny in today's corporate environment. We believe you... after all you are the Truth. ®

Veritas Webcast on Lonchar scandal - 'Isolated'

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