May 5, 2015

Whistleblower Mark Whitacre Speaks to ECU Business Students

Mark Whitacre, an Ivy League Ph.D. and the highest-ranked executive of any Fortune 500 company to become a whistleblower in U.S. history, spoke to a packed auditorium of ECU business students on April 15. He presented “When Good Leaders Lose their Way,” an ethics message about doing the right thing.

Whitacre is responsible for uncovering the ADM price-fixing scandal in the early 1990s. In apparent retaliation for his role as an informant, ADM investigated Whitacre’s activities and, upon discovering suspicious activity, requested the FBI investigate him for embezzlement. As a result of $9.5 million in various frauds, he lost his whistleblower’s immunity and spent eight years in federal prison.
Since December 2006, Whitacre has served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Science Officer at Cypress Systems, Inc.  His undercover work with the FBI during the ADM scandal was the inspiration for the major motion picture “The Informant” starring Matt Damon.

During his presentation at ECU, Whitacre shared his experience as both a criminal and an FBI informant. He discussed his motivation and struggles throughout his journey, and he showed a picture of the green lamp the FBI used to record video during the three-year undercover operation. He offered advice for students to pursue success in an ethical way, concluding that you should live life as if others are watching your behavior.

Whitacre said, “All of you, if you haven’t already, will experience a lot of forks in the road. They’re not always illegal activities, sometimes they’re unethical. And I can tell you from experience, you want to choose that right path, because the long term consequences that I put my family through wasn’t worth it… A life of significance is so much more important than a life of success.”

Whitacre and his wife Ginger have three children. Their daughter Tanya is a 2001 elementary education graduate of ECU. whit2