Andrew Fastow, the former chief financial officer at Enron who pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, forfeited nearly $24 million, and spent more than five years in prison for securities fraud, is sharing his story with business students.
Andrew Fastow, the former chief financial officer at Enron who
pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, forfeited nearly $24
million, and spent more than five years in prison for securities fraud,
is sharing his story with business students. To start, Fastow, a
graduate of the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, recently spoke with students at the University of Colorado–Boulder Leeds School of Business. There are already others like him—white-collar criminals—who are making the rounds at B-schools. The idea is to teach future leaders what not to do.
After reading a Bloomberg Businessweek article co-written by Leeds Dean David Ikenberry about the need to teach ethics at business schools,
Fastow reached out to the school and offered to make the visit. “I was
initially taken aback,” says Ikenberry. “I was personally aware of his
story because I started my career as a finance professor at Rice
University in Houston [where Enron was headquartered]. … I had personal
awareness of the human tragedy—the suicides, divorces, those who lost
everything, the toll on corporate America, etc. Enron is one of our
world’s greatest corporate tragedies.”
For those who don’t
remember, Fastow was more than a bit player in that tragedy. It was
Fastow who designed the complex web of “off-balance sheet” companies
that allowed Enron to hide its true financial condition from investors. A
year before the implosion, the stock was trading at $90 a share, an
all-time high. When the truth finally came out, shares were going for
40¢ apiece. In December, Fastow was released from the Houston halfway
house where he spent the last few months of his sentence. He now works
for a Houston law firm that represented him in civil matters, says Lee
Kaplan, a partner in the firm. His title: document review clerk.
Although
Fastow was the one who initiated this speaking event, which took place
Monday night, he told one student who asked how much money he still had
that it was no one’s business, according to an article about the speech in the Denver Post.
Still, Ikenberry says that Fastow conveyed contrition and deep regret
for what he did without making excuses. And, adds Ikenberry, Fastow
tried to provide students with an important lesson. Ikenberry said he
began by explaining how he ended up crossing the line from doing the
right thing to committing a crime.
“There are people who look at
the rules and find ways to structure around them. The more complex the
rules, the more opportunity,” Fastow said, according to the Post. “The question I should have asked is not what is the rule, but what is the principle.”
Contacted by Bloomberg Businessweek,
Fastow declined to comment. Student reaction to Fastow’s comments and
presence was just what Ikenberry wanted, he says. “At a personal level,
students came to terms with their own values,” says Ikenberry. “In their
day-to-day lives, their principles need to stand out always.”
Good advice. If only someone had given it to Fastow 14 years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment