The FDIC’s First Chief Innovation Officer Made Big Claims. Many Don’t Stack Up

In 2015, fintech founder and eventual FDIC Chief Innovation Officer Sultan Meghji was sitting in a co-working space when a loud bang clapped through the room. It startled his colleagues, a group of founders from the St. Louis startup community, according to a person who was there. Meghji turned to a colleague and said the violent pop gave him flashbacks to the time he was shot.

Many of Meghji’s former colleagues and associates have heard him talk about his supposed encounter with a bullet, but the details change. He told some he was shot during a summer program with the U.S. Naval Academy. Or with special forces in Iraq. Or in Afghanistan. Or during a training exercise in Arizona. In another telling, the late senator and Vietnam veteran John McCain was present. Asked about the variations in the stories and whether or where Meghji was shot, a spokesperson for Meghji said: “Sultan never claimed to have been shot at the U.S. Naval Academy; he was there for a summer program as a teenager nearly 30 years ago and found out that he would not be a good fit as a midshipman.”