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dsrtao_Extraordinary Circumstances_, Cynthia Cooper
The accountant who ran WorldCom's internal audit department tells all. Set in a foreign land where churches and pastors are important and constant religious references are normal. (If a neighbor wrote a bible verse on a note and tacked it to my door, I'd be considering harassment charges, not thanking them for the kind thought.) Despite the subtitle (The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower) Ms. Cooper was not a whistleblower; she didn't call up the SEC and say, hey, there's a lot of fraud over here in WorldCom. She discovered evidence of massive fraud (the first time she sees a questionable number, it's half a billion dollars) and reported it to the internal company audit committee, just as she was supposed to do. Then she showed a little bit of courage in pursuing more evidence, but at no point did she take it further outside the company than the external auditors.
History is largely examples of things not to do; this is more of them.
The accountant who ran WorldCom's internal audit department tells all. Set in a foreign land where churches and pastors are important and constant religious references are normal. (If a neighbor wrote a bible verse on a note and tacked it to my door, I'd be considering harassment charges, not thanking them for the kind thought.) Despite the subtitle (The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower) Ms. Cooper was not a whistleblower; she didn't call up the SEC and say, hey, there's a lot of fraud over here in WorldCom. She discovered evidence of massive fraud (the first time she sees a questionable number, it's half a billion dollars) and reported it to the internal company audit committee, just as she was supposed to do. Then she showed a little bit of courage in pursuing more evidence, but at no point did she take it further outside the company than the external auditors.
History is largely examples of things not to do; this is more of them.
