2009 ECI Conference • October 21-23 • Bolger Center, Potomac, Maryland

Keynote Speakers

Cynthia Cooper, CPA, CFE
Author
WorldCom Whistleblower

Cynthia Cooper, CPA, CFE was the vice president of internal audit at WorldCom in 2002 when she and a team of auditors uncovered the largest accounting fraud in U.S. corporate history. Her dogged pursuit of suspicious accounting practices and her refusal to be daunted by her powerful corporate superiors with their new-age accounting doublespeak, eventually led to the arrest of the company’s CEO and CFO and the bankruptcy of the company. While it pained her to see the company she helped build up go down in flames, she knew it was her duty to bring the financial malfeasance to the attention of the company’s board and government authorities. Her actions were hailed as heroic and that year Time Magazine chose her and two other whistleblowers as their persons of the year.

Cooper serves on the accounting advisory board for the University of Alabama and serves as the chairperson of the Louisiana State University Center for Internal Auditing Advisory Board and the Mississippi State University Executive Advisory Board. She recently published Extraordinary Circumstances, her account of the WorldCom ordeal and has donated profits from the book to further ethics education for high school and college students.

Cooper earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Mississippi State University and her master’s degree in accounting from the University of Alabama.


Martin T. Biegelman, CFE, CCEP
Director, Financial Integrity Unit
Microsoft Corporation
Member, ECI Board of Advisors

Martin T. Biegelman, CFE, CCEP, is Director of the Financial Integrity Unit at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA. Mr. Biegelman has 35 years of experience in fraud, corruption and security investigations. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a Director of Litigation and Investigative Services in the Fraud Investigation Practice at BDO Seidman, LLP, an international accounting and consulting firm. He is also a former federal law enforcement professional having served as a United States Postal Inspector in a variety of investigative and management assignments. As a federal agent, he was a subject matter expert in fraud detection and prevention.

He is the author of Building a World-Class Compliance Program: Best Practices and Strategies for Success and Identity Theft Handbook: Detection, Prevention, and Security as well as co-author of Executive Roadmap to Fraud Prevention and Internal Control: Creating a Culture of Compliance. He is also a contributing author to Fraud Casebook: Lessons from the Bad Side of Business. He is currently working on his next book about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Mr. Biegelman has a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Golden Gate University.
 




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