CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market trading After-hours trading Winners/losers/actives Bonds Currencies Commodities Money Magazine Retirement Mutual Funds Taxes Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Loan Center Best Places to Live Calculators Mortgage Rates Personal tech Big Tech blog Techland blog Sectors and stocks Fortune 500 techs Tech Talk 100 best places to launch Ultimate resource guide Small biz makeovers FSB 100 Fortune 500 Technology Investing Management Rankings Main Create portfolio Edit portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts
How To Cope When The Spotlight Dims SHERRON WATKINS Former vice president for corporate development, Enron
By Interviews by John Battelle, Brian Caulfield, Michael V. Copeland, Bridget Finn, Amy Johns, Matthew Maier, Om Malik, Susan Orenstein, Brent Schlender, Erick Schonfeld, Paul Sloan, Betsy Streisand, and Owen Thomas

(Business 2.0) – Since I didn't let the spotlight go to my head on the front end, I don't mind that it's not there now. It was crazy, right from the day--Jan. 14, 2002--when congressional staffers found my memos to Ken Lay and leaked them. The phone was ringing off the hook. My husband comes into the bathroom and says, "There are camera crews in the front and back." It was very unnerving.

You can't name a media person that didn't call: Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, 60 Minutes. It really is like being the popular girl in high school and the boys want to get you into bed; once they have you, they don't want you anymore. It's the "get." Once you're on a program, the rest don't want you anymore.

The spotlight has moved off a fair amount, but on the other hand, I never expected it to drag on this long. I'm interested in starting a consulting firm that boards of directors call for help on governance issues. It would be better if I didn't have as much media spotlight, because that spooks people. But my husband and lawyer--both of them talked to the media a lot, and they got a lot of the phone calls, and they're disappointed that the attention is gone. My husband started to fall victim. Connie Chung had Maury Povich play golf with him, and he actually thought he was friends with Maury Povich! My lawyer says, "Don't you miss the attention?" He openly questions me on it, because I think he misses it. But the answer is no.