4.01.2008 - 11:00am ET

(CSRwire) NEW YORK - April 1, 2008 - As the whistleblower who alerted the world to the $7 billion frauds being committed by WorldCom's CEO and CFO, she earned the title of Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2002. But CRO Conference keynote Cynthia Cooper is not romantic about the role she played in jump-starting the Corporate Responsibility profession. "I was seen as a traitor, falsely called a 'scorned woman', lost lots of weight, and suffered horribly knowing that so many jobs were lost as a result of the fraud I’d uncovered," she told the record crowd of 288, on March 27 at the prestigious Union League Club in New York City.

Cooper's speech was followed by a keynote from Andy Bryant, Chief Administrative Officer of Intel, which was awarded the #1 ranking on the 2008 CRO Magazine 100 Best Corporate Citizens list. Bryant called for public companies to seek leadership from their top officers in raising their level of corporate responsibility. "At Intel, the effort started at the top and it started from the beginning. We focused on all 8 areas covered by the 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking, from governance to human rights to environment and climate change and finance, assigned accountabilities, and the results continue to put Intel at or near the top," Bryant said.

CRO Conference chairman Jay Whitehead also announced that the keynotes for the June 18, 2008 CRO Conference at San Francisco's Marine's Memorial Club will include Mark Thompson, CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor, which made #54 on the 100 Best Corporate Citizens list. In his speech, Thompson will issue a headline-grabbing call for a new approach to corporate governance and government regulation.

Other major speakers included Suzanne Fallender of Intel, Joe Wolfsberger VP EHS at Eaton which was #2 on the 2008 100 Best list, Paul Delva SVP and General Counsel at #54 Fairchild Semiconductor, Yalmaz Siddiqui Chief Sustainability Officer at Office Depot, Triple Bottom Line author Andrew Savitz, Mark Bateman Research Director of IW Financial, Doug Cogan Research Director at Risk Metrics/ISS, Doug Klein and Michael Meltzer of Sirota Survey, Chris Spain CEO of Hydropoint, Guy Boucher Chief Sustainability Officer of Domtar Paper, John Davies Sustainability Analyst at AMR Research, Susan Graff CEO of ERS Global, Rick Petersen SVP of National Public Relations, Susan Puflea SVP of Golin Harris, Professor Mathew Gilley of St. Mary's University, Justin Miller Counsel at DuPont, Paula Ivey of CSR Group, and Elliot Clark CEO of Crossing Media.

The CRO Conference in NYC was sponsored by ERS Global (www.ers-global.com), Deloitte (www.deloitte.com), Golin Harris (www.golinharris.com), Hydropoint (www.hydropoint.com) and WeatherTrak, Domtar Earth Choice (www.domtar.com), Brunswick Group (www.brunswickgroup.com), Hogan & Hartson (www.hhlaw.com), Dell (www.dell.com), ICR (www.icrinc.com), St. Mary's University (www.stmarytx.edu/business), Intel (www.intel.com), American Heritage Rivers Alliance (www.14rivers.org), eQuilibrium Solutions Corporation (www.equilibrium.net), National Public Relations (www.national.ca), Acre Resources (www.acre-resources.co.uk) and CSR Wire (www.csrwire.com).

About The CRO: The CRO is the only membership media platform for Corporate Responsibility practitioners, and the professional service providers and nonprofit influencers that serve them. The CRO publishes the 20,000-subscriber CRO Magazine and TheCRO.com, e-newsletters, and produces four CRO Conferences, webinars and video events. With more than 140 corporate members including Amtrak, American Express, Sara Lee, Viacom, IBM, Chubb Insurance, Intel, Dell, Pepsi, Home Depot, Starbucks, Avon, Gap, State Street, Xerox, providers such as Deloitte, Baker & McKenzie, SAP, Hogan & Hartson, Grant Thornton, Golin Harris, Ketchum, Cone, LRN, Integrity Interactive, and nonprofits including Stanford University, UCLA, and Harvard. Corporate membership information can be found at www.TheCRO.com or by calling (732) 476-6160 ext. 108.

About Crossing Media: Crossing Media Group is the leader in business media covering responsible corporate globalization. Offering print and online publications, conferences and membership programs, Crossing Media Group serves strategy-level corporate executives in the human resources, finance, compliance and sustainability professions in North America, Europe and Asia. Crossing Media's four print titles, HRO Today, HRO Europe, FAO Today and CRO total 26 annual issues and its online titles total 48 issues. In 2007, an estimated 1,564,650 executives in 34 countries on five continents read the titles, its online properties drew over 1.2 million unique visitors and over 22.1 million inquiries, and its terrestrial and online conferences drew over 3,000 executives.

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