A corporate control fight has erupted at Ondo Finance, the tokenized real-world-asset issuer, after Kathleen Allman — mother of the company's late founder Nathan Allman — filed a verified complaint in the Delaware Court of Chancery seeking to remove chief executive Ian De Bode and reconstitute the board under her control. Nathan Allman died in May 2026 while serving as Ondo's CEO, sole director, and controlling shareholder; the cause of death was redacted from the public court filing.
De Bode moved into the CEO role immediately after Allman's death, which the estate's complaint alleges he did by improperly asserting automatic succession under company bylaws rather than through a valid board vote. The estate's position only became legally actionable once Kathleen Allman was formally appointed personal representative of her son's estate through Hawaii probate proceedings on June 26 — a step that, in the estate's telling, restored her control over Nathan Allman's voting power in the company.
The July 24 Board Vote
On July 24, Allman used that restored voting power to reconstitute Ondo's board and, alongside newly appointed director Tahnee Towill, voted to remove De Bode from every position at the company. The same vote installed Allman as chairwoman and interim CEO. The estate has described her leadership as transitional, framed around stabilizing governance while the company searches for a permanent successor rather than as a long-term takeover.
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De Bode Pushes Back
De Bode disputes the estate's account and continues to hold himself out as Ondo's chief executive, maintaining he retains the backing of major stakeholders and the Ondo Foundation. "Kathy Allman's decision to file a lawsuit is regretful," De Bode said in response to the filing. "This course of action is clearly not in the interests of the company, its stockholders, the team, or the Ondo ecosystem."
As of the most recent public updates, no Delaware Chancery ruling had resolved which side actually controls the company, leaving Ondo — one of the more prominent names in tokenized Treasury and real-world-asset products — with an unsettled leadership question at a moment when institutional interest in tokenization has been building.
