Jeffrey Skilling became the chief executive officer and president of Enron in February 2001. Before that, he headed Enron's North American operations. He graduated in the top five percent of his class at Harvard Business School in the late 1970s, and was widely admired for his efforts to buy and sell Internet bandwidth as a tradable commodity. He joined Enron in 1990 after working as a consultant for McKinsey & Company.

Although he was publicly criticized for Enron's alleged role in the 2001 California energy crisis, Skilling defended the company and said it was not responsibile for any power shortages. Instead, he blamed energy shortfalls on myopic deregulation plans. In August, Skilling resigned for what he called personal reasons, but his sudden departure exacerbated rumors that Enron's business was in trouble.

-- By Liz Harper, Online NewsHour (Posted June 2002)