Sherron Watkins
Enron Whistleblower
Sherron Watkins
Enron Whistleblower
Biography
Known internationally as the Enron whistleblower, Sherron speaks around the globe to a broad range of audiences about ethics and leadership, and the lessons to be learned from the collapse of Enron, where she served in a variety of executive positions for over 8 years. Sherron was employed for over two decades as an executive for three large global companies, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, Metallgessellschaft AG, the German metals giant, and Enron Corp. All were multi-billion dollar companies brought down by scandal. Sherron has seen firsthand the cost of an erosion in values. Her journey through the Enron crisis has inspired many, and has crystallized her focus to share and to improve the lot of whistleblowers and would-be whistleblowers.
Sherron Watkins is the former Vice President of Enron Corporation who alerted then chairman Ken Lay in August 2001 to accounting irregularities within the company, warning him that Enron ‘might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.’ She has testified before Congressional Committees investigating Enron’s demise from both the House and the Senate. Sherron received national acclaim for her courageous actions and TIME magazine named Sherron along with two others, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, as their 2002 Persons of the Year, calling it “The Year of the Whistleblower.”
In recognition of her outstanding demonstration of ethics in the work place, Ms. Watkins has received numerous honors, including the Court TV Scales of Justice Award and its Everyday Hero’s Award, the Women Mean Business Award from the Business and Professional Women/USA Organization, and the 2003 Woman of the Year Award by Houston Baptist University. Glamour Magazine named her one of its 2002 Women of the Year, and Barbara Walters included her as one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2002. In 2003, the National Academy of Management presented Ms. Watkins with their Distinguished Executive Award and the Women’s Economic Round Table honored her with the Rolfe Award for Educating the Public about Business and Finance.
Watkins, serves as Distinguished Advisor, Business Ethicist, on the Advisory Committee of Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council. Currently, she is a Senior Fellow for Ethics and Policy for Whistleblower Network News and she continues to advocate for whistleblowers in her lectures on corporate governance and leadership.
Watkins is co-author of Power Failure, the Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron (Doubleday, 2003).
Ms. Watkins is a Certified Public Accountant. She holds a Masters in Professional Accounting as well as a B.B.A. in accounting and business honors from the University of Texas at Austin.
Speaker Videos
The Value of Courage with Barbara Walters
Facing an Ethical Dilemma
Power Failure: The Depth of Moral Bankruptcy
Rights of the Whistleblower
The Fall on Enron
Speech Topics
Leadership Lessons from the Enron Scandal
Enron’s leadership pursued best practices on paper, but behaviors told a different story, setting up a culture and value system that became a breeding ground for not just thinking outside of the box or pushing the envelope, but for actual fraud. Enron was known as the most innovative company – in fact, Fortune Magazine named Enron just that, for seven years in a row.
Unfortunately, the dark side of innovation is fraud. And the interesting thing about white collar crime is that it involves three key factors: extreme pressure to meet a goal (be that an earnings target or to obtain more money personally, etc.); the opportunity to cheat; and most importantly, the rationalization that it’s not cheating.
In this revealing presentation, Sherron shares how compensation systems impact fraud, the role of the public auditor in Enron’s collapse, the role of the banks in Enron’s collapse, and the importance of the CEO and how ethical lapses from the C-suite are magnified in subordinates.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Learn how compensation systems impact fraud.
- Understand the role of the public auditor in Enron’s collapse and the role of the banks in Enron’s collapse.
- Identify the importance of the CEO and how ethical lapses from the C-suite are magnified in subordinates.
- Detect how ethics and leadership in the workplace can come from a company's culture and values.
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