Sherron Watkins

Sherron Watkins (born August 28, 1959) was Vice President of Corporate Development at the Enron Corporation. She is considered by many to be the whistleblower who helped to uncover the Enron scandal in 2001.

In August 2001, Watkins blew the whistle internally by alerting then-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay of accounting irregularities in financial reports. However, Watkins has been criticized for not speaking up publicly sooner about her concerns, as her memo did not reach the public until five months after it was written.

Watkins testified before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate at the beginning of 2002 and was selected as one of three "People of the Year 2002" by Time. (The two other whistleblowers who joined her as "People of the Year" were Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Coleen Rowley of the FBI.)

Watkins was born in Tomball, Texas. 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 colleges and management congresses. She has also co-written a book about her experiences at Enron and the problems of the US corporate culture.

Watkins holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (with honors) from the University of Texas, where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority, and a Masters of Professional Accounting. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Books

• Mimi Swartz with Sherron Watkins: Power Failure. The Inside Story of The Collapse of Enron, ISBN 0-385-50787-9 (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

• "Interview with Sherron Watkins". Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.

External links

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