That principle turned out to be the whole of her philosophy as Chairwoman, and it made her, to the surprise of a business press that had expected either a figurehead or a wreck, unexpectedly formidable.

She had learned things in ten years of captivity that no business school teaches — chiefly, an unerring eye for the ways the powerful convince the powerless that their mistreatment is their own fault.

She had lived inside that machinery.

She knew exactly how it sounded, exactly how a person in authority made a person beneath them doubt their own perceptions, because it had been done to her expertly for a decade.

And so she could spot it instantly, anywhere in the company — the manager who kept his people confused so they would stay compliant, the accounting that was murky on purpose, the quiet culture of fear that always, she knew, meant someone near the top was hiding something.

She dismantled those without mercy.