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Michael Woodford, Olympus £1 billion fraud whistleblower set to speak at Leeds Met

Michael Woodford, the former chief executive who blew the whistle on a £1bn corporate fraud at Japanese electronics giant Olympus, is set to speak at Leeds Metropolitan University.

The event, which forms part of Leeds Business School’s free public guest lecture series, will take place on Tuesday 4 March from 5.30pm-7.30pm in the Rose Bowl.

Michael, who exposed Olympus in 2011, will recount how he was dismissed just two weeks into the job as CEO, after questioning payments made by the company.

Over the following weeks, regulators uncovered an accounting fraud stretching back more than a decade.

The scandal saw Olympus’s shares plunge, prompted the resignation of its board, and led to the arrests of several of its most senior former executives, including its chairman.

Michael has chronicled his extraordinary story in his bestselling real life thriller ‘Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower’. His lecture will also conclude with the opportunity to ask him questions.

Paul Houghton, a Principal Lecturer in Leeds Metropolitan’s Faculty of Business and Law, who has organised the lecture, said: “The on-going winter/spring business lectures have been top notch and Michael Woodford’s talk will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of the series.

“His experience and the extraordinary story he has to tell will make for a captivating guest lecture and I’d encourage anyone interested in hearing what Michael has to say first hand, to book their seat as places are limited.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .