Cynthia Cooper
- Named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2002 for her role in unraveling the fraud at Worldcom
Travels From
Mississippi
Cynthia Cooper Speaker Biography
Cynthia Cooper is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, and best-selling author. In 2002, she
blew the whistle on what would become the largest corporate fraud and bankruptcy in history. Cynthia
was previously Vice President and Chief Audit Executive at WorldCom and continued to serve in that
role with MCI.
Cynthia has served on the Board of Directors for the National Association of State Boards of
Accountancy CPT, as Chair of the Board of Regents for the ACFE, and as a member of the Standing
Advisory Group of the PCAOB. She has also served on numerous university advisory boards and has
donated all of the profits from her book to promote ethics education.
In 2022, Cynthia was recognized as one of twelve internal audit thought leaders. In 2020, she was included
in TIME’s list of the most influential women of the last 100 years. Cynthia was previously named one of
Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year and featured as one of twenty-five most influential working mothers
in Working Mother magazine. Along with Sherron Watkins, and the late Senator Sarbanes and
Representative Oxley, Cynthia is a recipient of the Maria & Sidney E. Rolfe Award. She is the first
woman to be inducted into the AICPA Business Hall of Fame and to receive the AAA Accounting
Exemplar Award. She is an inductee of the IIA American Hall of Distinguished Audit Practitioners.
Cynthia began her career in public accounting and previously worked in Atlanta, Georgia for Deloitte
and Touche and Pricewaterhouse.
Extraordinary Circumstances: Unraveling the Largest Corporate Fraud in History
Using her personal experiences as a backdrop, Cynthia will share the compelling story about how she and her team unraveled the WorldCom fraud, the largest corporate fraud in history. Attendees will be able to experience events in real time through her riveting story which is told from a human perspective and looks far beyond the accounts and numbers involved in the fraud. Attendees will be transported into the meetings, buildings and settings in which the events unfolded.
Cynthia will take the audience through the magnificent rise and fall of WorldCom as insiders who witnessed it unfold. When she started with the company in her late twenties WorldCom had revenues of $1.5 billion. By 2000, revenues had grown to over $38 billion. WorldCom was once listed number one for the highest return to shareholders over a ten-year period and the fifth most widely held stock. WorldCom boasted the largest acquisition ever when it purchased MCI, a company three times larger; and its Chief Financial Officer, Scott Sullivan, was at one time the highest paid in the country.
Attendees will be introduced to the executives responsible for transforming WorldCom from a small insignificant long distance reseller into a telecom powerhouse. Cynthia will offer insight into why mid-level managers and senior executives chose to commit fraud, and audience members will feel the pressure that these executives felt to meet Wall Street earnings guidance and stand with them at the crossroads of their ethical dilemma.
Other Topic include:
Ethical Leadership
Leading with Passion and Purpose
Defining Moments: The Power of Choice
Amazing Change: Making the Most of Every Opportunity
