Customer Reviews

Confessions of an Enron Executive: A Whistleblower's Story

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This is a great book for reasons that the author never intended. Brewer was not really an executive nor a whistleblower, but basically a paralegal who played the Enron game and eventually lost. What makes the book so interesting is that Brewer seems to lack the self-realization of her participation in Enron's dysfunctional culture. I recommend the book for college classes in organization behavior and business ethics.

Unfortunately, this book reflects how somebody can make money by exaggerating his/her role. As USA Today found, Ms Brewer was never an Enron Executive. She was merely doing a clerical work and was fired when she failed to perform an assignment in UK.
I'm just wondering what lesson should we take from her book? For me the main lesson is, people will do everything to get famous and rich. Even by fooling others and taking credit of someone's accomplishment.
So, don't be fooled by this book and the author. The true Enron Whistleblower is not her. All of the stories in this book are fiction.

You really want to give this woman money by buying her book? She wasn't an executive and didn't actually choose to be a whistleblower, she plead out. Part of her plea agreement is that she had to found the "Integrity Institute" (not sure why the judge thought she'd be qualified for that). She knew there was impropriety for years, but whenever she brought it up Enron gave her enough stock options for her to look the other way. Ah yes, integrity. She spoke at my university and when a student said that he wants to have a successful career but not break the law, her advice was, "Just be sure you make enough money that you can afford a good lawyer."

This book could be a great "what NOT to do" book on integrity, and it can certainly spawn interesting conversations in a HS or college Ethics class, but I recommend you get it from the library so as not to pad Brewer's pockets any more.

Brewer is the last person who should be lecturing anyone on ethics. As verified by USA Today in an article on October 12, 2007, she was neither an executive at Enron nor was she in any position to have witnessed the wholesale malfeasance she described. That anyone would believe a word that comes out of her mouth or springs from her pen is a tragedy. That she should continue to profit from her dishonesty is a travesty.