Kenneth Lay

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Image:Kenneth Lay.jpg Kenneth Lee Lay (born April 15, 1942) is an American businessman and former CEO of Enron Corporation. Lay was the CEO and chairman of Enron from 1986 until his resignation in January 23, 2002, except for a few months in 2001 when he was chairman and Jeffrey Skilling was CEO. Enron and Ken Lay have become synonymous with corporate abuse and accounting fraud. The trial of Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling began on January 30, 2006 in Houston.

A number of books have been written on Lay and Enron including Conspiracy of Fools (2005), Icarus in the Boardroom, The Smartest Guys in the Room (2003), and 24 Days. The Smartest Guys in the Room was adapted into a documentary film, released in 2005.

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Early life and career

Born into poverty in Tyrone, Missouri, Kenneth Lay came from a family so poor that they were not always able to celebrate holidays, eating cold-cuts one Thanksgiving. The son of a Baptist preacher and some-time tractor salesman, Kenneth Lay always kept a sense of optimism and had the credo that “things would work out.” He has been described by his undergraduate classmates at the University of Missouri as industrious and high-minded, and served as president of the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the U. of Missouri and got his doctorate in economics at University of Houston in 1970.

Kenneth Lay learned favor-trading and influence peddling in the early ‘70s as a federal energy regulator. By the Reagan administration, when energy was deregulated, Kenneth Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate by merging Houston Natural Gas Co. with Nebraska-based Inter-North.

Kenneth is known to be a very close personal friend of current US president George W. Bush, and was one of the largest contributors to his presidential campaigns. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Advisory Committee. According to Kurt Eichenwald's book Conspiracy of Fools, Lay was nearly selected to be Secretary of the Treasury following Bush's victory in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill was ultimately chosen for the position instead.

Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock in September and October of 2001 as its price fell, while encouraging employees to buy more stock, telling them the company would rebound. His own sales were in response to margin calls. Lay liquidated more than $300 million in Enron stock from 1989 to 2001, mostly in stock options.

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Grand jury indictment

On July 7, 2004, Kenneth Lay was indicted by a grand jury in Houston, Texas for his role in Enron's collapse. Lay was charged, in a 65-page indictment, with 11 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and making false and misleading statements. If convicted on all counts, Lay faces a sentence of 175 years in prison. The trial commenced on January 30, 2006 in Houston. A jury of 8 women and 4 men were selected to serve as a jury of 12; 2 men and 2 women were selected as alternate jurors for the trial.

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Education

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Curriculum vitae

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See also

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External links

fr:Kenneth Lay

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