Jeffrey Keith Skilling (born November 25, 1953, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American businessman and former CEO of Enron Corporation, notorious for his role in the Enron scandal. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1975, an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979, worked at McKinsey & Company, and joined Enron in 1990. Skilling rose to become chief operating officer in 1997 and briefly served as CEO from February to August 2001. His tenure was marked by aggressive accounting practices and mark-to-market valuation that inflated profits while masking massive debts. The company's collapse in late 2001 led to bankruptcy, massive job losses, and investor losses, sparking major corporate reforms including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Skilling was convicted in 2006 on multiple federal felony counts including fraud and conspiracy for his role in the scandal, sentenced to 24 years in prison (later reduced to about 14 years), and served 12 years before release in 2019. Post-release, he has maintained a low profile while facing ongoing civil lawsuits and criticism for his role in one of the largest corporate frauds in U.S. history.