Cynthia F. Cooper

Cynthia Cooper is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, and best-selling author of "Extraordinary Circumstances," a book about her experiences and lessons learned at WorldCom. In 2020, Cooper was included in 100 Women of the Year, TIME’s list of the most influential women of the last 100 years. In addition, she was named one of Time Magazine’s Persons of the Year for her role in uncovering the fraud at WorldCom and has been featured as one of twenty-five most influential working mothers in Working Mother magazine. She is a recipient of the Maria & Sidney E. Rolfe Award for her contributions to educating the public about economics, business and finance. Cooper is the first woman to be inducted into the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Business Hall of Fame. In addition, she is an inaugural inductee of the Institute of Internal Auditors American Hall of Distinguished Audit Practitioners, and she is the first woman to receive the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Exemplar Award

Cooper serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy CPT which promotes ethical leadership. She previously served as Chairman of the Board of Regents for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and as a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

Cooper serves on advisory boards for Mississippi State University and Louisiana State University and previously served on advisory boards for the University of Alabama and Lehigh University. She has donated all of the profits from her book to ethics education for students.

Cooper served as Vice President for MCI where she and her team helped the company move forward and successfully emerge from bankruptcy. She began her career in public accounting and previously worked in Atlanta, Georgia for Deloitte and Touche and Pricewaterhouse.