This is Nottingham --
WE may admire whistleblowers and to blow the whistle takes courage. Colleagues quickly become former colleagues and frequently feel they have been let down. And yet scandals emerge because of whistleblowers – hospital trusts that are not performing, the leaking of documents by Edward Snowden which suggest the US government is spying on our e-mails.
It takes huge courage to spill the beans.
Michael Woodford came to Nottingham University to talk about his own experiences when he climbed the career mountain at Japanese-owned Olympus. There he became president and blew the whistle on one of the biggest frauds in corporate history.
Within weeks of taking on the job at the electronics giant, Woodford discovered a $1.7 billion (£1.1 billion) fraud and corruption which went to the very core of the business.
He confronted his fellow boardroom directors – and his reward was to be fired.
Woodford went public and wrote a book about his experiences, taking his former multi-national employer to an employment tribunal. Olympus settled on the steps of the London court, paying him a rumoured £10m.
Today, Woodford is a sought-after speaker on corporate ethics.
And despite a bruising experience at Olympus, he is still an enthusiast for its technology and products.
"For the money and the value, you won't get a better camera," he volunteers, talking about a recent innovative Olympus.
"Despite all I have been through, it is still a great company with good products."
Woodford recalls that he was little more than three months into his new job when a friend, a senior corporate player from another business, alerted him to a problem in Olympus. A small magazine was alleging Olympus was doing "weird and wonderful things" in relation to its M&A (merger and acquisition) activities.
His friend – pseudonym "Doro" in the book – translated the article which was "incredibly detailed", says Woodford.
"When I went into the office on the Monday, no one raised it. I called two colleagues to my office and asked if they knew of the allegations."
They did and had been told by the chairman not to discuss the article with him.
At a meeting with the chairman the next day, Woodford said it became apparent "something was horridly wrong and bad at the top of this corporation of 40,000 people".
He recalls how he asked for the resignation of the chairman and the vice-president and one other director.
"I was dismissed the following day as a result," says Woodford.
This was August 2011.
Eventually, the share price fell 81 per cent, wiping $7bn off the value of the company. But the board continued, with not a murmur of criticism from major institutional shareholders, said Woodford.
"That is what shocked me most."
He had been with the company 30 years, running a surgical subsidiary in the US and later Europe making up 40 per cent of the business.
In October 2011, the Financial Times published the story and it became unstoppable, followed up by the Serious Fraud Office and the FBI.
In July this year, three former Olympus officials, including the chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, were jailed.
Today, Woodford is in demand as a speaker by universities such as Nottingham, Oxford, Harvard and Yale. "They want to hear from the first president to become a whistleblower of his own corporation."
A problem made in Japan can be identified by obedience to authority, deference to hierarchy and a lack of willingness to challenge and confront
And although identified as key factors in the Fukushima disaster following the tsunami two years ago, the template is transferable to Japanese corporate life, says Woodford.
He is critical of the Japanese media for not picking up immediately on a story as powerful as his experience. They behave like a corporate PR department of the company they are reporting on, he says.
While Woodford is concerned about Japan, he says there is a cynicism about capitalism as seen in the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy St Paul's demonstrations.
"I am very cynical for this country. The problem is in the boardroom, with greed, when you hear the salaries that are paid. The greed and the excesses are becoming divisive and unsustainable."
Woodford was brought up in Liverpool and admits to being left-wing in his politics. "But capitalism is the best system we have," he says.
Exposure: how I went from CEO to Whistleblower, by Michael Woodford, published by Penguin Reported by This is 9 hours ago.
WE may admire whistleblowers and to blow the whistle takes courage. Colleagues quickly become former colleagues and frequently feel they have been let down. And yet scandals emerge because of whistleblowers – hospital trusts that are not performing, the leaking of documents by Edward Snowden which suggest the US government is spying on our e-mails.
It takes huge courage to spill the beans.
Michael Woodford came to Nottingham University to talk about his own experiences when he climbed the career mountain at Japanese-owned Olympus. There he became president and blew the whistle on one of the biggest frauds in corporate history.
Within weeks of taking on the job at the electronics giant, Woodford discovered a $1.7 billion (£1.1 billion) fraud and corruption which went to the very core of the business.
He confronted his fellow boardroom directors – and his reward was to be fired.
Woodford went public and wrote a book about his experiences, taking his former multi-national employer to an employment tribunal. Olympus settled on the steps of the London court, paying him a rumoured £10m.
Today, Woodford is a sought-after speaker on corporate ethics.
And despite a bruising experience at Olympus, he is still an enthusiast for its technology and products.
"For the money and the value, you won't get a better camera," he volunteers, talking about a recent innovative Olympus.
"Despite all I have been through, it is still a great company with good products."
Woodford recalls that he was little more than three months into his new job when a friend, a senior corporate player from another business, alerted him to a problem in Olympus. A small magazine was alleging Olympus was doing "weird and wonderful things" in relation to its M&A (merger and acquisition) activities.
His friend – pseudonym "Doro" in the book – translated the article which was "incredibly detailed", says Woodford.
"When I went into the office on the Monday, no one raised it. I called two colleagues to my office and asked if they knew of the allegations."
They did and had been told by the chairman not to discuss the article with him.
At a meeting with the chairman the next day, Woodford said it became apparent "something was horridly wrong and bad at the top of this corporation of 40,000 people".
He recalls how he asked for the resignation of the chairman and the vice-president and one other director.
"I was dismissed the following day as a result," says Woodford.
This was August 2011.
Eventually, the share price fell 81 per cent, wiping $7bn off the value of the company. But the board continued, with not a murmur of criticism from major institutional shareholders, said Woodford.
"That is what shocked me most."
He had been with the company 30 years, running a surgical subsidiary in the US and later Europe making up 40 per cent of the business.
In October 2011, the Financial Times published the story and it became unstoppable, followed up by the Serious Fraud Office and the FBI.
In July this year, three former Olympus officials, including the chairman, Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, were jailed.
Today, Woodford is in demand as a speaker by universities such as Nottingham, Oxford, Harvard and Yale. "They want to hear from the first president to become a whistleblower of his own corporation."
A problem made in Japan can be identified by obedience to authority, deference to hierarchy and a lack of willingness to challenge and confront
And although identified as key factors in the Fukushima disaster following the tsunami two years ago, the template is transferable to Japanese corporate life, says Woodford.
He is critical of the Japanese media for not picking up immediately on a story as powerful as his experience. They behave like a corporate PR department of the company they are reporting on, he says.
While Woodford is concerned about Japan, he says there is a cynicism about capitalism as seen in the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy St Paul's demonstrations.
"I am very cynical for this country. The problem is in the boardroom, with greed, when you hear the salaries that are paid. The greed and the excesses are becoming divisive and unsustainable."
Woodford was brought up in Liverpool and admits to being left-wing in his politics. "But capitalism is the best system we have," he says.
Exposure: how I went from CEO to Whistleblower, by Michael Woodford, published by Penguin Reported by This is 9 hours ago.