Staff
Sarah is a doting mother to 2 young children, and the head of the fastest growing division of the world’s pre-eminent criminal consultancy firm.
Sarah has always been an over-achiever. Goldman Sachs, Harvard Business School, then a top global consultancy. But she also found it hard to stick to the rules and simultaneously keep clients happy. One step over the line led to another, and soon Sarah found herself as the go-to person to structure shady corporate transactions for the Enrons of the world. But she never saw it as wrong: she was working within the law, after all, even if some saw it as unethical. When the financial scandals inevitably hit, she went from being the Golden Girl of Wall Street to persona non grata - the loss of status and credibility was crushing. Her firm, having turned a blind eye while the money was flooding in, quickly cut ties and left her unemployed – and unemployable. At least, that is, until Moriarty & Co came knocking. It wasn’t a firm she’d heard of before, but they were the only ones hiring.
Sarah’s expertise is helping clients to structure their businesses, sheltering their assets from tax and law enforcement, as well as competitors and their own families. That’s pretty important for Moriarty & Co’s clients, and her business has blossomed. With the success of her department, the Board elevates Sarah to Senior Partner. Learning the true nature of the business and its clients, Sarah is forced to confront her own moral ambiguity: disentangling who she thinks she is, from who she really is. Is she a good mother, wife, person - or simply a pragmatic one?
Sarah also starts to question what happens if she doesn’t continue to be successful. The disappearance of the firm’s mysterious original founder makes her wonder what retirement means if things don’t work out. And she has to keep all of this from her family, both for their protection, and to hide the shame of working for out-and-out criminals. Sarah compartmentalises – keeping it all secret from her doctor husband, Daniel, and two daughters who look to her as their role model.
Sarah Ripley
Head of Financial Engineering
Leslie Armstrong was the first in his family to go to university. Fiercely smart and ruthlessly ambitious, Armstrong thought he would leave behind the Scottish crime family he was born into - at least until he started work as a corporate lawyer in London. It turned out working in The City was quite a lot like working for criminals. Toeing the line didn’t fit him well anyway, and he jumped at the chance to work at Moriarty & Co, where he quickly rose through the ranks, eventually spearheading the firm’s expansion.
But, Armstrong found himself clashing with the firm’s original Founder, Gus Moran. Moran was reluctant to expand overseas and refused to take on clients that weren’t white and British. When the discord became threatening, Armstrong led a very hostile takeover. Armstrong had the support of powerful backers, a group that turned into the firm’s new Board.
With Armstrong in control, Moriarty & Co grew from strength to strength. Armstrong is charismatic and loved within the firm, but outside of it leads an ascetic lifestyle, eschewing family and relationships. His life seems devoted to his work. However, after 20 years as Managing Partner, the Board feel his management may be too old fashioned for a world dominated by evolving technology. Armstrong is under pressure to step down from active management and instead take the title of Chairman Emeritus. But Leslie Armstrong’s like a bad penny. It’s not that easy to get rid of him.
Leslie Armstrong
Managing Partner
Julia Stapleton
The New Consultant
Julia Stapleton, an American financial executive living in London, was recently fired from a large credit card company after she was suspected of orchestrating a money laundering scheme through her company’s payment system. She denies it, of course, and they didn’t have any real proof. Strangely, she wasn’t too bothered about losing her job – especially when sitting in the new penthouse flat she’d just bought overlooking the Thames. Though, with this hanging over her, it’s been a bit more difficult to find gainful employment.
To Sarah Ripley, that’s a story she knows all too well, so she jumps at the opportunity to hire the bright consultant. Julia has a Harvard education and early career in pharmaceuticals, giving her just the right education and knowledge to be useful. And she aced the firm’s moral flexibility test. She seems ideal for Moriarty & Co. Perhaps a little too perfect. It’s almost as if she’s prepared her whole career to get a job at the firm…
And, she has. During Armstrong’s violent insurrection, Julia’s Chinese mother grabbed her baby and fled London for San Francisco. Her father, one of Moriarty & Co’s senior partners, had sent them away for their protection, but never called to bring them back home. She was brought up in exile, her mother unwilling to discuss their past life or even reveal her father’s identity. The only thing she knows is that they were forced to leave because of a vicious takeover battle. Julia was left to believe her father was dead. The little else Julia knows is from scraping together the pieces of information from her mother’s things and her own research. When her mother dies, an angry Julia sets out to uncover the mystery of her father. Who was he really and what happened to him? She will be led to believe she is the daughter of Gus Moran, the firm’s Founder – a man everyone assumes is dead.
Julia is determined to find the truth of what happened to her father and take revenge on those responsible – and she’s starting with the man at the centre of it all, Leslie Armstrong.
Kin-Ming was a lifer in the Hong Kong police. At least that’s what he thought when he joined the force as an undercover informant for his Hong Kong gang. But time passed and the gang’s leadership changed, leaving him out in the cold. Kin-Ming, a rising star in the force, began to forge new relationships for his own protection - and financial gain. Following Antony Lector’s repeated offers to join Moriarty & Co in London, Kin-Ming finally accepts. He realised that his time in Hong Kong waiting to be discovered was like sitting on a ticking time bomb -the only way to protect his young family was to leave.
Kin-Ming’s a huge asset to the firm - with intimate knowledge about law enforcement and expertise in Hong Kong, China and Interpol. He’s also the perfect person to run the firm’s internal security and ensure that the identity of their real clients is kept secret. It’s a shock for some of those clients to be dealing with an ex-cop, but they soon realise the brilliance of having him consult for them.