Woodford, a 30 year veteran of Olympus, found himself in the middle of treachery and intrigue immediately after being appointed President & CEO in April 2011 when he discovered $1.7 billion in accounting fraud. Olympus corporate executives were hiding huge investment losses through complex takeover deals. Woodford immediately blew the whistle on the scandal and was fired from Olympus on Oct. 14, 2011. When he left the building that day, he feared for his life.

Woodford immediately turned over a file to journalist Jonathan Soble of the Financial Times and from there headed for Haneda where he caught a flight to Hong Kong. When he arrived in Hong Kong he noticed the story had already hit newsstands, remarking life since has been like a John Grisham novel.

At the podium, Woodford pulls audiences right into the plot of what felt like a suspenseful thriller and shares the experience of being the first ever president of a large corporation forced to become a whistleblower on his own company. He educates audiences about leadership and how with honesty as a basic foundation, capitalism can still be ethical and corporations can still be profitable.

Woodford began his career at 21 for the UK subsidiary, Olympus KeyMed, as a Surgical Salesman, progressing to Sales Manager and Sales Director before being appointed its Managing Director in 1990 at the age of 29. Following a period of dramatic growth for the UK company, in October 2004 Woodford became a main Board member of Olympus Medical Systems Corporation and was appointed Executive Managing Director of Olympus Medical Systems Europe, where he implemented a radical program of change within the organization which resulted in a doubling of the operating profit within three years.

In this same three-year period, he was also responsible for Olympus Surgical and Industrial businesses in America, during which time both sales and profitability increased considerably. April 2008 saw his appointment as Executive Managing Director and Chairman of Olympus Europa Holding, with overall responsibility for the European Medical, Industrial, Life Science and Consumer Products businesses and became an officer of the main Board of Olympus Corporation in Japan. During his tenure of this role, the operating profit of the European business increased by nearly 50%.

In April 2011 Woodford was appointed President and COO of the Olympus Corporation. On Oct. 1, 2011, he was made CEO and then dismissed within two weeks after blowing the whistle on the Companys scandal. After his bravery in exposing the wrong doing at Olympus, the UKs Sunday Times, The Independent and The Sun all awarded him the 2011 Business Person of the Year; the first time three national newspapers have all chosen to honor the same individual and TIME recognized him as one of the People Who Mattered in 2011. Woodford was also the winner of the 2012 Cliff Robertson Sentinel award For Choosing Truth over Self by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

Most recently, Woodford chronicled his unbelievable story in his true life thriller Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower.

Woodford was an early pioneer of Corporate Social Responsibility, with his work to reduce deaths on the roads in the UK and around the world, and was appointed by Her Majesty the Queen as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Years Honours list in 2002 in recognition of this support of the community. Between 2004 and 2008, Olympus KeyMed, of which Woodford was then the Managing Director, received the highly prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise, firstly in 2004 in the category of Sustainable Development, then in 2006 for International Trade, and again, in 2008 for Innovation. To receive three Queens awards in such a short period is a testament to both the high standards and entrepreneurial ethos of the organization Woodford headed. Woodford is an avid sailor and runner, and lives in the UK with his wife Nuncy and their two children.