Karolina Novotney

Karolina Novotney is Waystar Royco's head of communications, the person who steps in whenever a scandal needs managing or a statement needs wording just so. She moves through boardrooms and hallways with brisk, unbothered competence, more concerned with optics than loyalty to any one Roy, and unfazed by whatever chaos the family generates.

She's the show's driest running joke about corporate self-preservation: utterly unsentimental, endlessly adaptable, always ready with a clipped, deadpan line that cuts through the family's hysteria. Dagmara Dominczyk plays her with such flat, professional calm that Karolina becomes a kind of barometer — when she looks worried, you know it's actually bad.