UW College of Business Speaker Series Features Famed Corporate Whistleblower Feb. 22

Famous WorldCom whistleblower, accountant, author and business ethics leader Cynthia Cooper will speak Wednesday, Feb. 22, at noon in the University of Wyoming College of Business’ Scarlett Auditorium.

The talk is free and open to the public.

Cooper was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for her role in unraveling the fraud at WorldCom and is an internationally recognized motivational speaker. She is the author of the book “Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower” and a consultant who helps organizations build ethical foundations as CEO of The CooperGroup.

After Cooper and her team unraveled the fraud at WorldCom, to date one of the largest corporate frauds in history, Cooper served as a vice president for MCI, where she and her team helped the company move forward and successfully emerge from bankruptcy.

Cooper has consulted with large-cap public companies including Dell, Bell South, France Telecom, PepsiCo, Raytheon, Walmart and AT&T, as well as public accounting firms such as Deloitte and Price Waterhouse. She also has consulted with organizations such as the Washington, D.C. Trial Lawyers Association, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor and the United Nations.

Cooper’s visit is the highlight of the Ethical Leadership Showcase, which is organized annually by the UW Center for Principle-Based Leadership and Ethics. Events also will include an ethical case competition, a seminar on personal branding and an ethical leadership panel discussion.

“An objective of the Ethical Leadership Showcase is to educate students on what can happen in companies when leaders disregard ethics; having witnessed the consequences firsthand, Cooper is uniquely qualified to speak on the importance of ethical leadership,” says Chase Thiel, the Bill Daniels Chair of Business Ethics at UW.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the UW Center for Principle-Based Leadership and Ethics, the Department of Accounting and Finance, the Department of Management and Marketing, and the College of Business Speaker Series. It is made possible thanks to generous support from the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative, the Carl M. Sandberg Memorial Speakers Fund, the Dimitrios Smyrnios family and the Clara R. Toppan Endowment.

“We are excited about the caliber of leaders in industry and academia who are coming to speak with our students and faculty this year,” says Scott Beaulier, dean of the UW College of Business. “Our college’s strong emphasis on business ethics makes Cooper an ideal guest for our speaker series, and we’re excited to have her launch our spring 2023 series.”

Later this semester, the college will welcome Jim Fish, CEO of Waste Management, and Nicholas Sly, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

“Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower” will be available for sale in the University Store. Cooper will sign books in the College of Business atrium Feb. 22 from 4:15-5:30 p.m.

For more information about the lecture, email Mitchell Oler at moler@uwyo.edu.