Cynthia Cooper

Featured Keynote Programs

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.