He was ultimately named CEO in early 2001. Jeff had climbed the ladder within Enron.he was hired by Ken Lay in 1990 to help the company make the transition from gas pipelines to trading - basically the reason why Enron’s growth took off. Simone: In the corporate press, Ken would often be pictured standing alongside Jeff Skilling. gave him his very own nickname: “Kenny Boy.” Simone: Apparently, they were so chummy, George W. Lay had established a long career in the Texas oil and gas industry, and was close with people in that scene: notably, the Bush family. Simone: I know, that’s a lot of vague titles and a lot of nondescript dude names. Simone: Chairman and CEO Ken Lay, COO and eventual CEO Jeff Skilling, and CFO Andy Fastow. Simone: People attributed the company’s success to three Enron men in particular… While their peers were growing by single digit percentages, it wasn’t unheard of for Enron’s revenue to more than double every year. Simone: And they seemed to be great at it! They’d been showing really steep growth for a while. Not just buying and selling natural gas, but building a market where energy could be traded. But by the time Sherron joined, Enron had started venturing into less tangible types of business, behaving more like a bank. It owned thousands of miles of pipelines across North America. Simone: The company was founded in 1985, the result of a merger between two natural gas companies. Simone: The reason Enron could make these insane deposits into their employees’ accounts is that, frankly, Enron was making a shit-ton of money in the energy sector. Sherron: What you make in a whole year, more than that, just got deposited in your checking account. Sherron says that she often got more than her annual salary all at once. Simone: But perhaps the sweetest perk of all was the famed Enron-bonus. Sherron: I used to brag that I didn't have to pay to go skiing, that I’d have one or two trips a year to Beaver Creek and Vail, you know, on Enron's dime. Simone: Employees got luxurious getaways. They had a swanky office building in downtown Houston with all of those good corporate perks: a gym on site, a fabulous cafeteria, even a Starbucks in the lobby. Sherron: If you had a good idea, it was actually fairly easy to get a budget approved and chase that idea. Sherron Watkins: Enron was very fast paced. She applied for a job, and lucky her, she was hired - as a director in finance. Simone: Enron had a reputation for hiring the smartest people. And she thought she found just the right place in a Houston-based energy company… She longed to move back to her beloved Texas, though, so she started looking for jobs. Simone: In 1993, Sherron Watkins was in her 30s, living in New York City, and working for a big accounting firm, performing audits on publicly traded companies. Simone: We're gonna circle back on that action item.after the break. Simone: This is a story of white collar crime, greed, and the costs of forsaking your tribe for the greater good. Simone: In sticking her neck out, Sherron would expose a whole lot more about corporate America than just the anatomy of one scandal. Simone: On August 22nd 2001, 20 years ago this week, Sherron Watkins met with the company’s CEO to warn him of the accounting scandal that was pushing the company to the brink of collapse. Every episode, we take a moment from that very same week in history - and tell you the story of how it shaped our world. Simone: From Gimlet Media, this is Not Past It, a show about the stories we can’t quite leave behind. Simone: And Sherron - she was the lone voice on the inside - standing up, speaking truth to power.literally. The energy behemoth which had collapsed months earlier in spectacular fashion, crippled by its own massive accounting fraud, leading to the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history at the time. Simone: Sherron Watkins had been summoned to deliver testimony about the company where she was currently a Vice President: Enron. Simone: In front of her, a name placard reads: Ms. She’s sitting at a long table facing a panel of people with a very lengthy name: The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Simone: At the front of the room is a woman with a neat, blonde bob and a printed silk scarf tied around her neck. A crowd of anxious onlookers fills an official-looking room.