John Carreyrou, the acclaimed author and Pulitzer-prize winning journalist whose investigative reporting blew the lid off the Theranos scandal in 2015, explained to third-party risk professionals at Compliance Week’s TPRM Virtual Summit on Friday that the mistakes made by the bankrupt blood-testing company’s business partners were entirely preventable—had they done their proper due diligence.
Both Walgreens and Safeway fell hard for Theranos and its charismatic CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, learning some tough, expensive lessons about third-party risk management through their reckless dealings with the company. For starters, executive leaders at both companies fell in love (hard, fast, and blindly) with the “revolutionary” vision of Theranos.
