Cynthia Cooper is an internationally recognized speaker on ethics, leadership, overcoming adversity, the current economic crises and recent scandals. Ms. Cooper inspires audiences and shares the riveting story of how she and her team unraveled the fraud at WorldCom - to date the largest corporate fraud in history.

In 2002, Ms. Cooper was named one of Time Magazineʹs Persons of the Year. In addition to Ms. Cooper, Sherron Watkins and Coleen Rowley, the designation has been given to only five women including Wallis Simpson, Madame Chiang Kaishek, Elizabeth II, Corazon Aquino and Melinda Gates since Time began naming its Person of the Year in 1927.

Ms. Cooper is the author of Extraordinary Circumstances (February 2008, John Wiley & Sons), a book that discusses her experiences as a corporate executive. In addition to being used by corporations, the book is often assigned by professors to help students recognize ethical dilemmas, think them through and make the right decisions.

Cynthia Cooper has a passion for speaking to young people about the lessons she has learned and the importance of strong ethical leadership. She has donated profits from her book to further ethics education for high school and college students.

In 2004, Ms. Cooper was inducted into the AICPA Hall of Fame and is the first woman to receive this distinction. She was featured as one of twenty-five influential working mothers in the November 2004 issue of Working Mother. Cynthia received the Maria & Sidney E. Rolfe Award from the Womenʹs Economic Round Table for contributions to educating the public about economics, business and finance. She also received the American Accounting Association's Accounting Exemplar Award, presented annually for notable contributions to professionalism and ethics in accounting practice or education. She is the tenth recipient of the Accounting Exemplar Award and the first woman to receive the award.

Cynthia previously served as the Chief Audit Executive for MCI until July 2004. Prior to joining MCI, she worked in public accounting in Atlanta, Georgia for Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Deloitte & Touche. She received her undergraduate degree in Accounting from Mississippi State University and her Masters of Accountancy from the University of Alabama.