Sherron Watkins (born August 28, 1959 in Tomball, Texas) was Vice President of the Enron Corporation. She is considered by many to be the whistleblower who helped to uncover the Enron scandal in 2001. August 28 is the 240th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (241st in leap years), with 125 days remaining. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Tomball is a city located in Texas, partially in Harris County and partially in Montgomery County. ... A whistleblower is an employee, former employee, or member of an organization who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power to take corrective action. ... Timeline of the Enron scandal: // 1996 Andrew Fastow begins committing crimes by creating off-book entities for personal enrichment [1] 1997 Andrew Fastow creates Chewco in an effort to hide debt and inflate profits but Chewco doesnt meet requirements to keep it off Enrons balance sheet. ...

It has been remarked that her actions cannot be considered whistleblowing in a strict sense, because she only wrote a concerned internal email message to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay warning him of potential whistleblowers in the company and pointing out that there were misstatements in the financial reports. Her memo did not reach the public until five months after it was written. Forbes Magazine argued that, for this reason, her actions did not constitute whistleblowing and actually helped provide legal cover for Lay.[1] Kenneth Lee Ken Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006), was an American businessman, best known for his role in the widely-reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation. ... Alternate meaning: For the Boston Brahmin family associated with John Forbes Kerry, see Forbes family. ...

She testified before the U.S. Congress and Senate at the beginning of 2002 and was selected as one of three "People of the Year 2002" by Time. (The two whistleblowers who joined her as "People of the Year" were Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Coleen Rowley of the FBI.) Person of the Year is an annual issue of U.S. newsmagazine TIME that features a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Notable Time magazine covers from the dates May 7, 1945; July 20, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... Cynthia Cooper was the whistleblower who exposed massive accounting fraud at WorldCom in 2002. ... For a time, WorldCom (WCOM) was the United States second largest long distance phone company (AT&T was the largest). ... Coleen Rowley (born December 20, 1954) is a former FBI agent and whistleblower, and a current candidate for Congress. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...

She had joined Enron in 1993, having worked for Arthur Andersen the previous eight years. She departed from Enron in November 2002. Since then she has been giving speeches at management congresses and has co-written a book about her experiences at Enron and the problems of the US corporate culture. This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry. ...

Watkins holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas (where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority), a Masters of Professional Accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). The University of Texas System comprises fifteen educational institutions in Texas, of which nine are general academic universities, and six are health institutions. ... Alpha Chi Omega (ΑΧΩ) is a womens fraternity founded on October 15, 1885. ... For other meanings of CPA see CPA (disambiguation) Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are accounting professionals of the United States who have passed the Uniform CPA exam, which was developed and is maintained by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and have subsequently met additional state requirements for licensure...

Books

• Mimi Swartz with Sherron Watkins: Power Failure. The Inside Story of The Collapse of Enron, ISBN 0-385-50888-3 (March 2003)

Film

• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. 2005. IMDB Includes personal interviews with Sherron Watkins.
• The Crooked E. 2002. Portrayed as a staff accountant who nervously alerts Lay of the misstatements.

External links

• Sherron Watkins eMail to Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, August 2001

References

• Interview with Sherron Watkins