This month marks the 20th anniversary of the internal audit at WorldCom that shined the light on a $3.8 billion financial reporting fraud. My recent article for AuditBoard revisited what I called “arguably the most consequential internal audit ever undertaken.” The audit not only contributed to the demise of WorldCom, but its results contributed in many ways to the swift US Senate passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act barely three weeks later.
As I observed in my WorldCom article, the audit wasn’t just the work of technically outstanding internal audit professionals (which it certainly was). More importantly, it was the direct product of courageous leadership by WorldCom’s CAE, Cynthia Cooper.…