Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower

Cynthia Cooper did an excellent job transporting readers to the circumstances surrounding the rise and fall of the once Behemoth Telecom company WorldCom. As a recently certified CPA, I cannot think of a better book to help anchor young professionals to a strong set of moral values to face ethical dilemmas that will sure come as they move up in their different career paths.

As a university professor and former auditor, I found Ms. Cooper's book to be an outstanding book which will be required reading in my course. The book focuses on the personal challenges that auditors face on the job - and on the challenges all of us face in our everyday lives.Finding a core set of principles to live by, and following those principles is not easy - especially when the people involved in wrong-doing are "friends" or business associates, while those affected by the wrong-doing are strangers.I was impressed with her descriptions of her life experiences - that life isn't fair - and that learning how to "get up off the mat" is more important than having the best plan.I was also impressed with her descriptions of the various ways in which she tried to understand what was being communicated to her. The "listening" and "communication" skills she discusses, and the inner strength she demonstrated when the easiest course would have been to ignore the anomolies or to take the explanations for them at face-value, are the real take-aways from the book.The accounting issues are pretty straight-forward - though, for non-accountants, she might have spent a little bit more time explaining "allowance" (for uncollectible accounts) and "prepaid capacity" accounts under accrual accounting. Further, she might have discussed briefly why the "matching" concept didn't apply to the lease expenses (the right to use the lines couldn't be stored and thus, the cost were period expenses, not capitalized assets). Nonethless, her book is a perfect fit with the Dot-Com Bubble HBS case - and serves as a great set-up for a discussion of the current sub-prime loan/credit-crunch that exists in the current economy. A life well-lived, and a book well-done.

What a wonderful experience reading this book. I found it very hard to put down. Cynthia Cooper's story reads like a novel, but wouldn't be very believable if it weren't true. Cynthia was a self made professional who had to build an organization, starting from nothing, in a high flying organization that couldn't understand the benefits of internal controls. Moving through a company that cared only about building through acquisitions, they had neither the time or focus to care about internal controls.When the Telecom Industry bubble bursts, WorldCom's CFO received the shocking news that their quarterly earnings were far below what they had forecast to Wall Street. Instead of facing the music, he directed illegal and fraudulent changes be made to hide the losses, hoping that this was just a short term anomaly that would right itself in the next quarter or so. Thus begins the slippery slope we hear about so many times.Cynthia Cooper's tenacity and dread of what she would find when she begins her relentless search for the truth, makes this a very compelling story. It is very clear that this was not a vendetta or search to destroy anyone's career, as she is deeply troubled by what she may find and how many lives and careers may be destroyed.This book should be required reading for every student of business administration. There are many lessons taught about maintaining a moral compass and the consequences that can occur when someone deviates from the proper course.I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

The angst, second guessing, depression, disbelief, guilt. I can attest to the emotions Ms. Cooper expressed in this book because I lived through this as an Internal Audit director. Her faith, strong family support, are very similar to mine and like her, it is what gave me the strength to expose and report on the fraud in my company. It is so funny when I read the comment about vitamins because my doctor told me the same thing. The non-support of her department, management directive to not give Internal Audit documents and other roadblocks, are eerily familiar. At least they did not fire her for doing her job.I did not find this book boring in the least, I read it in 2 days which is very good for me. I can see how people that are the breadwinners and fearful of losing their jobs can compromise themselves. Not right, but understandable. This should be supplemental reading in high school because it is an easy read and will give our future leaders an awareness the pressure to hit numbers can put on people. It will hopefully let them see of the consequences (prison, destroy family lives and the pain loved ones go through because of their decisions). What Ms. Cooper and her staff did is not easy and I am so thankful for her backbone and for sharing her experience.

Reads like a John Grisham novel and is very easy to follow. A cross between a dramatic crime novel and a memoir with real life implications on the characters made clear.

I am a retired educator driving a car out of the Richmond International Airport and had the privilege meeting Cynthia Cooper. Although our time together was short, I found her to be a very kind, interesting and sincere person. She briefly told her story and advised me to read her book. I told her that I would read her book if she read mine but that is another matter.I found her book to be very interesting even though at times I was a bit lost in the business jargon. It occurred to me that she risked her life to bringing criminal wrongdoing to light. She trusted her gut, her knowledge of cooperate law and her faith to do the correct thing. She is a southern girl who didn’t forget what her parents taught her on what was right and wrong.I feel that more people should read this in order to learn from her journey. Thank you, Cynthia for writing this and encouraging me to read it. Take care and may God bless you and your family.

This book is such a great read for any aspiring auditor.

We all say that we are looking for people with honesty, integrity, drive and dedication, but inevitably when we find such people, we take them out and whip them, which is exactly what happened to Cynthia Cooper, Vice President of Internal Audit at Worldcom when she exposed a $3.8 billion accounting fraud - at the time the biggest in US history.Her book "Extraordinary Circumstances" does not just confine itself to the actual discovery of the method, people involved, and minutiae of the fraudulent accounting entries involving the most frequently used ruse to falsely increase profits by classifying running expenses as capital expenditure. She also gives, perhaps the best `fly-on-the-wall' insight that I have as yet read, into the actions, management styles and personalities of the inner top management particularly Bernie Ebbers the CEO and Scott Sullivan the CFO.Some explanation for her actions in drawing attention to Worldcom's massive fraudulent accounting debacle bringing vilification on herself as being a Corporate Whisteblower, is given in her close god fearing family upbringing in a small Mississippi town, which instilled in her a sense of doing the right thing whatever the consequence. Her upbringing and high personal code of ethics were instrumental in following Winston Churchill's advice of "If you are going through hell, keep going."A powerful, interesting and insightful tale of corporate greed and corruptness coupled with a bio of a good, thoroughly decent person. If only there were more like her.That the outside Auditors did not pick up this massive accounting fraud that is often used and which a first year accounting student would be taught to watch out for, is frankly shocking and speaks volumes for the low level of protection investors, and all other interested parties can expect from the diligence of expensive external auditors. The 'jury is still out' as to whether, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 aimed at protecting investors from such lax accounting and auditing standards, has in reality had the intended result.A highly recommended read.

I work in the same area as the author and so found the story fascinating. However, the book is really written in a very pedestrian manner and I had to read it in small chunks otherwise I would have given up.

I liked the easiness of the read. Many good points were made and the story was interesting. I thought it went into background information a little too much and bored me at times. Overall really good though.

A fascinating view of the inside of a company and its founder as they go from nothing to dizzy heights and back to gaol and bankruptcy. Excellent.

Excellent story telling about the fall of a major telcom company, and about how to stand up for the truth even if/when everybody around you is telling you to let go and not bother.. A very inspiring book.