The main Enron's CEO and Chairman.

CV in brief.

• 1965: Economist, Exxon Corporation

• 1969: Assistant professor, George Washington University

• 1971: Assistant to a commissioner, Federal Power Commission

• 1972: Undersecretary for energy issues, Department of the Interior

• 1974: Vice president, Florida Gas

• 1976: President, Florida Gas

• 1979: Executive vice president, The Continental Group

• 1981: President, chief operating officer, Transco

• 1984: Chief executive officer, Houston Natural Gas

• 1985: Enron formed by purchase of Houston Natural Gas by InterNorth

• 1990: Chairman of the Board and chief executive officer, Enron; Co-chairman, organizing committee for G8 summit

• 1992: Co-chairman, President Bush Re-election Committee; Chairman, 1992 Republican National Convention, Houston

• 1993: Member, President Clinton's 'President's Council on Sustainable Development'

• 1994: Assists with campaign of Sheila Jackson-Lee to defeat Congressman Craig Washington

• December 2000: Mentioned as a possible candidate for President Bush's Treasury secretary

• February 2001: Steps aside as CEO in favor of Jeffrey Skilling.

• August 2001: Returns as CEO after Skilling's departure.

• January 2002: Under extreme pressure, Lay resigns as Enron CEO, leaves Board.

• July 2004: Indicted by grand jury.

• May 2006: Found guilty on ten counts of fraud and conspiracy.

• July 2006: Died at age 64, near Aspen, Colorado, while on vacation.

• October 2006: A federal Judge vacates conviction.

"Ken" Lay (April 15, 1942 - July 5, 2006) was an American businessman, best known for his role in the widely-reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation. Lay and Enron became synonymous with corporate abuse and accounting fraud when the scandal broke in 2001. Lay was the CEO and chairman of Enron from 1995 until his resignation on January 23, 2003, except for a few months in 2000 when he was chairman and Jeffrey Skilling was CEO.

On July 16, 2002, Lay was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of securities fraud and related charges. Lay was found guilty on May 25, 2006, of 10 counts against him. However, he died while vacationing in Snowmass, Colorado on July 5, 2006, about three and a half months before his scheduled October 23 sentencing. Preliminary autopsy reports state that he died of a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. A memorial was held a week after his death at the First United Methodist Church in Houston, attended by nearly 1,200 guests including former president George H. W. Bush, who did not speak.

Early life. Kenneth Lay was born into a poor family in Tyrone, Missouri. When he was a child Ken delivered newspapers and mowed lawns. Early on he moved to Columbia, Missouri and attended David H. Hickman High School and the University of Missouri where he studied economics. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Houston in 1970 and went to work at Exxon Mobil Corp. successor of Humble Oil & Refining upon graduation.

Lay worked in the early ‘70s as a federal energy regulator. He then became undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before he returned to the business world as an executive at Florida Gas. By the time energy was deregulated in the 1980s, Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate when Omaha-based Internorth bought his company Houston Natural Gas and changed the name to Enron in 1985.

Lay was one of America's highest-paid CEOs, earning, for example, a $42.4 million compensation package in 1999. In December 2000, Lay was mentioned as a possible candidate for President Bush's Treasury secretary along with J.P. Morgan & Co. Lay dumped large amounts of his Enron stock in September and October 2001 as its price fell, while encouraging employees to buy more stock, telling them the company would rebound. Lay liquidated more than $300 million in Enron stock from 1989 to 2001, mostly in stock options...

To read the article about the Enron scandal click on Internship

Source: Bocconi University, Group 7 paper work (May 2008) & Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia