To be fair, the suspect was 21. His tenure at the victim's company cannot have been very long.

Despite the victim "knowing" the suspect as an employee, I find it easy to imagine him not recognizing his employee who had a fairly average build, in a fairly common outfit, in an elevator with people being conditioned to keep as much distance as possible. How often do you closely look at fellow elevator riders' faces? Especially these days?

That being said, with the brief tenure assumed, it's incredible that the CEO would be willing to work so flexibly with a relatively new employee who stole what amounted to up to 100K.