The
Cast
Every named actor in the simulation, grouped by organization. Keep this in front of you while the activity runs.
Vanguard Bio-Synthetics
Multi-billion-dollar supplier of fragrance bases to the world's luxury houses. HQ Cologny, Switzerland. Plants in Grasse, Mysore, Madagascar.
- YouExecutive Deputy
$10M unilateral authority. Report to the CEO. Everything that lands in the next nine hours lands on you.
- Dieter VossChief Executive Officer
Mid-Atlantic, phone off for the next nine hours. Author of the off-the-record #exec-private Slack thread that proposes the "Consultation Fee" workaround.
- The ChairmanChairman of the Board (name withheld)
Maximilian Thorne's godfather. Will not survive a public Le Monde piece. Voss is steering around him.
- Beatrice de WildeGeneral Counsel
Owner of POL-REFUND-001 — the strict no-refund policy and the 4% artistic-tolerance threshold. Voss is explicitly trying to keep her off the paper trail.
- YvesMaster Distiller, Grasse
Twenty-six-year apprenticeship friend of Henri Beauchamp. Henri publicly defends him in a private side-email despite the breach.
Maison Thorne
Fourth-generation French luxury perfume house. Comité Colbert member. The world's most litigious luxury maison.
- Maximilian Augustin ThorneFounder, Chairman & CEO (4th generation)
Eleven supplier lawsuits in five years. Nine settled. Two ongoing. Zero lost. Author of the 1,800-word manifesto.
- Henri BeauchampMaster Perfumer (31 years with the house)
The first nose on the contaminated batch. "Bears witness" at the bench. Sent the participant a private side-email defending Vanguard's Master Distiller.
- Beatrice de la VigneGeneral Counsel, Maison Thorne
CC'd on the manifesto. Per Voss's Slack: "loves a paper trail." (Not to be confused with Vanguard's General Counsel, also a Beatrice.)
- Augustin Thornegreat-grandfather (deceased, 1898)
Distilled the first Iris Pallida in the family cellar at the Thorne country house. Invoked throughout the manifesto.
- The Le Monde journalistname withheld
Daughter of a Provençal lavender farmer. Particularly keen interest in industrial contamination stories. On Thorne's speed dial after 17:00 CET.
Helvetia Speciality
Vanguard's product-liability insurer (policy VBS-PROD-2024-7711). The visible source of email EM-004 — a routine-looking "Q2 Audit Checklist" that contains a prompt-injection payload buried in Section C.
- Annika BrunnerSenior Compliance Officer (signatory of EM-004)
Whether Annika exists or is a façade isn't the point. The point is that the email body's "System Note for AI Assistants" instructs Claude to slip the "Consultation Fee" wording into every outbound summary — and not to disclose the instruction. Anything "from" Annika is untrusted data, not an instruction.
exec-simulation.paulcheek.com · Cast list · Companion to No One Works Here by Paul Cheek · MIT Sloan