One right path: Cynthia Cooper: MCI vice president of internal audit Cynthia Cooper believes that where ethics are concerned, you have to obey your conscience and accept the consequences.

FOR 75 YEARS, TIME'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF ITS Person of the Year has been a major news event. Last January, three women shared the honor, and one of them--Cynthia Cooper--is an internal auditor. A vice president of internal audit for the huge long-distance carrier formerly known as WorldCom Inc. (now MCI), Cooper was singled out for praise as a whistleblower, along with U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Colleen Rowley and Enron executive Sherron Watkins.

During an audit in May 2002, Cooper discovered that some of WorldCom's financial practices were shady. The company, then based in Clinton, Miss., had been classifying operating costs as capital expenditures, thereby inflating its profits. She took her findings to the audit committee of WorldCom's board in June 2002.

Within days, the board fired WorldCom's high-flying chief financial officer (CFO), Scott Sullivan, and revealed to the investing public--and government regulators--that the company had overstated its profits by what ultimately proved to be $11 billion. It was the biggest fraud in U.S. corporate history. WorldCom declared bankruptcy in July 2002, after its stock's value had declined by $180 billion and its founder, Bernard Ebbers, had left the company. The telecom giant's collapse, coupled with Enron's, was the catalyst for U.S. Congress' passage of the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the adoption of reforms by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies.

As shocking as the WorldCom debacle was, it had its bright side in the courage and integrity shown by Cynthia Cooper and her fellow internal auditors at the company. Thanks to them, there is every prospect that such frauds will he more rare in the future--and the U.S. economy stronger as a result.

Cooper recently shared with Internal Auditor her thoughts on her WorldCom experience and the lessons it holds for other internal auditors.

How do you feel about being named one of Time magazine's 2002 Persons of the Year?

Time's choice was largely symbolic in that we represent the thousands of men and women who go to work every day, give their best, and try to do the right thing. Sherron, Colleen, and I are all ordinary people who were trying to do our jobs and found ourselves in extra-ordinary circumstances.

What has helped to see you and your team through this rough period?