Michael Winston was a high-level executive at Countrywide Financial tasked with writing a report about Countrywide’s succession planning and other governance issues to allay concerns expressed by Moody’s Credit Services. Winston refused to write the report as he had seen no succession plan, nor knew if one even existed. Soon afterward, his budget was frozen, his duties curtailed, and when Bank of America took over Countrywide in 2008, he was fired. His story was detailed in a 2011 New York Times story.
