Mark Whitacre is the highest ranked executive of any Fortune 500 company to become a whistleblower in U.S. History.
Mark was responsible for uncovering the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) price-fixing scandal in the early 1990s. His most active involvement is as a Marketplace Ambassador for the Christian Business Mens Connection (CBMC) in the USA, an 85-year old organization that has impacted his life greatly the past two decades. Since 2006, Mark had been an executive with Cypress Systems, Inc, a California biotech company involved with human clinical trials (cancer research), and he was promoted in 2009 to the position of COO & Chief Science Officer of the company. Mark recently went on the Advisory Board of Cypress Systems, in order to serve full time with CBMC.
His undercover work with the FBI during the ADM scandal was the inspiration for the 2009 major motion picture, “The Informant,” starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, and the 2010 Discovery Channel documentary ‘Undercover” archived on Mark Whitacre’s website, http://www.markwhitacre.com . The recent book, “Mark Whitacre Against all Odds”, describes the rest of the story about how faith has molded Mark’s life since the ADM scandal. Mark’s story is about how God transformed his life, and about redemption and second chances. It is an inspirational story about a family surviving against all odds
After simultaneously completing B.S. and M.S. degrees at Ohio State University, Mark then earned his Ph.D. degree at Cornell University in biochemistry (1983). After he completed his Ph.D., he worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies including Ralston Purina, Degussa (Evonik), and ADM. Mark was hired at ADM, the 56th largest company on the Fortune 500 at the time, when he was 32 years of age. As the president of the BioProducts Division from its launch, he was the youngest divisional president in the history of the company. In just six years, his division’s fermentation complex became one of the largest in the world. At age 35, he became a corporate vice president of ADM and was the leading candidate to become the next company president. Mark has extensive international business experience, having lived for almost four years in West Germany working for an international company. He has also been involved with two international companies in the Southeast Asia market and traveled the region dozens of times. Mark’s more than two decades of top management experience at Fortune 500 and international companies, as well as his experience with the ADM price-fixing scandal and the FBI, give him a unique, seasoned perspective on leadership in the corporate world.
Today, the four FBI agents involved with Whitacre’s case tout him publicly as a “national hero” for his substantial assistance with one of the most important white-collar cases in history. And Douglas Burris, chief of U.S. Federal Probation in the Eastern District of Missouri, has stated publicly, “The story about Mark Whitacre’s redemption and second chance is one of the most inspirational stories of our time.”
Mark and his wife of 36 years, Ginger, have three grown children. Mark & Ginger travel the country extensively speaking at national events and sharing their faith as witnesses for Jesus Christ.
53rd Annual Tampa Bay Leadership Prayer Breakfast 