Vulture

Circled Enron's carcass while insisting nothing was wrong.

Kenneth Lay, the disgraced CEO of Enron, epitomizes the vulture's opportunistic patience — building an empire by picking over deregulated markets while maintaining a veneer of respectability. He allowed Enron's fraudulent house of cards to collapse around thousands of employees and shareholders while he and insiders cashed out, swooping in on opportunity and then distancing himself from the carnage. His public insistence of ignorance even as the evidence mounted is the defining trait of a creature that profits from others' misfortune.