Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The Mississippi State alumna and former WorldCom executive who helped uncover one of the largest corporate frauds in U.S. history will speak Feb. 15 at the university.
Cynthia Cooper of Brandon, named one of Time magazine's 2002 Persons of the Year for her "whistleblower" role, is scheduled to discuss her career and recently released autobiography during two public programs in the new Taylor Auditorium of McCool Hall, home of the College of Business and Industry.
Her first presentation begins at 9 a.m., then will be repeated at 10. (Both actually are college classes held in a 300-seat facility.)
From 11 a.m.-noon in the nearby atrium, Cooper will sign copies of her book, "Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower" (John Wiley and Sons Inc.).
Like the book, her campus presentations will examine the decision-making process that guided her as vice president of internal audit at the Clinton-based international company.
After discovering that crafty accounting measures by others at WorldCom had turned a $662 million loss into a $2.4 billion profit, she chose not to bury the findings. Instead, the 1986 MSU accounting graduate filed a report that led rapidly to accusations, investigations, indictments, and the ultimate collapse of the telecommunication giant.
Cooper, who also holds an accounting master's degree from the University of Alabama, continued to work at WorldCom for two years after the collapse. The company eventually merged with MCI, another major telecommunication provider, and now is known as Verizon.
In 2004, Cooper resigned to form a business specializing in consulting and training in internal audit, internal controls, governance, and ethics.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For additional information on Cooper's campus appearance, contact Debbie Dunaway at 662-325-1888.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.