They found executives who said that as they talked with the company about the sale of hospitals they managed Columbia offered them perquisites and promises of jobs.

She frequently found male Japanese engineers and executives unable to comprehend the idea of a black female as software manager.

In recent years, he said, he has found corporate executives so deeply involved in their prospering companies "that I think it has distracted them from community involvement."

The state court jury found Tesoro's founder and chairman, Robert V. West, and other executives of the San Antonio-based company not guilty of allegations made by shareholders in a class action lawsuit.

Not long after completion of the building, several of the company founding key executives were killed in a light aircraft accident.

Jennifer Elliott, 24, a researcher on Mr. Renaud's team, said that in the course of her computer searches, she had found executives at prominent companies who lied about their college educations.

The firm recently found several American executives to help manage one of Russia's biggest industrial companies, Zil.

And when he and the buyers for Connecting Things entered a vendor meeting the next morning, they found middle-aged executives playing with the toys on the conference-room table.

The company was originally founded as Data Downlink Corporation in 1996 by Steven Goldstein and Mike Angle, former executives of Knight-Ridder's Business Information Services division.

Mr. Saatchi is now founding his own agency with Charles and other former top executives of Saatchi & Saatchi.