I offer no proof, but the timeline seems to indicate he was damn near the top. Dino was fired in what was described at the time as a "hastily drawn news conference" on April 7th and [name redacted] was leaked as the front runner in the middle of the night on the 9th/10th, and officially announced on the 14th after he made his way to Winston. If anything, it sounds possible that Wellman could have reached out to [name redacted], found he was interested and then made the decision to fire Gaudio.
I'm sure others could have been contacted in that time, possibly by concerned folks in the AD or boosters, or just as a matter of due diligence. But Wellman was the only person with [name redacted] on his list...if [name redacted] wasn't at the top or damn near it, it makes zero sense that he was finalizing negotiations two days after Gaudio was fired.