“I also think you should step away from the review process.

You have too much personal involvement.”

She was right.

The old version of me would have demanded control to protect my name.

This time I signed a conflict disclosure and delegated authority to independent trustees.

The review eventually found attempts to secure favorable publicity and access to internal competition information, but no evidence that the blind scoring had been changed.

Several people, including Cordelia’s adviser, had falsely suggested that sponsorship could influence the result.