Cynthia Cooper (accountant)
Cynthia Cooper is an American accountant who formerly served as the Vice President of Internal Audit at WorldCom. In 2002, Cooper and her team of auditors worked together and often at night and in secret to investigate and unearth a massive $3.8 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom. At the time, this was the largest incident of accounting fraud in U.S. history.
Since leaving what became MCI, Cooper started her own consulting firm. In addition, Cooper speaks to professionals as well as high school and college students to share her experiences and lessons learned.
Cooper's book about her life and the WorldCom fraud, Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower, was published in 2008. Profits from the book were given to universities for ethics education.
Cooper previously worked for the Atlanta offices of public accounting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche.
Cooper earned her Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Mississippi State University and a Master of Science in Accountancy from the University of Alabama. She is a Certified Fraud Examiner. Cooper was named one of three "People of the Year" by Time magazine in 2002, along with fellow whistleblowers Sherron Watkins and Coleen Rowley.
Cooper maintains an office in Brandon, Mississippi. She married Lance Cooper in 1993; they have two children, Stephanie and Anna Katherine.
