Jeffrey Skilling biography

Synopsis

Profile

Business executive. Born Jeffrey Keith Skilling on November 25, 1953 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, Jeffrey Skilling received his B.S. in applied science from Southern Methodist University in 1975 and his M.B.A. from Harvard in 1979. Upon graduation, he worked for McKinsey & Company in their energy and chemical consulting practices.

In 1990, Skilling was hired away from McKinsey by Kenneth Lay to work at Enron Corporation. Skilling was named chairman and chief executive officer of Enron Finance Corp. and became the chairman of Enron Gas Services Co. in 1991. In 1997, he was promoted to president and chief operating officer. In that capacity, Skilling pushed an aggressive investment strategy, helping make Enron the biggest wholesaler of gas and electricity, with $27 billion traded in a quarter. He was named CEO of Enron, replacing Lay, in 2001.

Slowly but surely, Enron built a house of cards, recording anticipated future profits as actual gains in order to inflate its stock price. In August 2001, amidst the California energy crises, Skilling unexpectedly resigned and sold almost $60 million in Enron shares. The company declared bankruptcy in December 2001. In 2006, Skilling was convicted of multiple federal felony charges, including insider trading, securities fraud, and making false statements to auditors. At the time of its collapse in December 2001, Enron??s bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history, costing investors billions and 20,000 employees their jobs and in many cases their life savings.

Jeffrey Skilling was fined $45 million and is currently serving a 24-year, 4-month prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minnesota. His case is currently under appeal.

Skilling has a daughter and two sons from his first marriage, which ended in divorce in 1997. He married Rebecca Carter, a former Enron executive, in March 2002.

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