Sherron Watkins (born August 28, 1959) is an American former Vice President of

Corporate Development Corporate development refers to the planning and execution of strategies to meet organizational objectives, primarily through mergers and acquisitions or divestitures. The kinds of activities falling under corporate development may include strateg ...

at the Enron Corporation. Watkins discovered and reported the 2001

Enron scandal The Enron scandal was an accounting scandal sparked by American energy company Enron, Enron Corporation filing for bankruptcy after news of widespread internal fraud became public in October 2001, which led to the dissolution of its accounting ...

to Enron's then- CEO

Kenneth Lay Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman and political donor who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in Enron scandal, Enron's accounting scandal that unr ...

. Watkins was selected as one of three " Persons of the Year 2002" by ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine, alongside two other

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

s, Cynthia Cooper of

WorldCom MCI, Inc. (formerly WorldCom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. WorldCom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunicatio ...

and Coleen Rowley of the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

Early life and education

Watkins was born in Tomball, Texas. Watkins holds a

Bachelor of Business Administration A Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is an undergraduate degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of four years and typically 120 credits of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of busine ...

(with honors) from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

, where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority and a Master in Professional Accounting, also from the McCombs School of Business. Watkins is a

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Stat ...

with retired status.

Career

Watkins began her career in 1982 at

Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen LLP was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corpo ...

as an auditor. She spent eight years at Andersen in both the

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

and New York offices. She joined New York-based MG Trade Finance in 1990 to manage their portfolio of commodity-backed finance assets until October 1993. She joined Enron in 1993. In August 2001, Watkins alerted Lay of accounting irregularities in financial reports. According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'': "Enron began an inquiry, but it failed to use independent investigators and her claims were largely dismissed." Watkins was later criticized for not reporting the fraud to government authorities and not speaking up publicly sooner about her concerns, as her memo did not reach the public until five months after it was written. Watkins was represented by Houston attorney Philip H. Hilder. Watkins was called to testify before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

at the beginning of 2002, primarily about her warnings to Enron's then-CEO

about accounting irregularities in the

financial statement Financial statements (or financial reports) are formal records of the financial activities and position of a business, person, or other entity. Relevant financial information is presented in a structured manner and in a form which is easy to un ...

s. In 2004, Watkins released a book about her experiences at Enron and the problems of US corporate culture, ''Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron''.

Books

* Mimi Swartz with Sherron Watkins: '' Power Failure. The Inside Story of The Collapse of Enron'', (March 2003)

Film

* '' Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room''. 2005
IMDB
Includes personal interviews with Sherron Watkins. * '' The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron''. 2003. Portrayed as a staff accountant who nervously alerts Lay of the misstatements.

References

External links

Sherron Watkins - Official Website
archived version at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

, from January 28, 2017)
Sherron Watkins email to Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, August 2001
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Watkins, Sherron 1959 births American accountants American energy industry executives American whistleblowers Enron people Living people McCombs School of Business alumni Women in finance People from Tomball, Texas