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The 5th Annual Paul D. Merrill Business Ethics Lecture, hosted by the University of New England's Business and Communications Department, featured Diana B. Henriques, author of the best-selling The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust. 

Henriques is a contributing writer for The New York Times, where she has worked since 1989.

Her lecture on Thursday, April 12 at 4 p.m. in the Eleanor DeWolfe Ludcke Auditorium on the Portland Campus, discussed "What Bernie Madoff Can Teach Us About Business Ethics."

Henriques was introduced by former Maine Governor Angus King, a long-time friend of Paul D. Merrill and a member of the Merrill Business Ethics Lecture Committee.

In her lecture, Henriques discussed Bernie Madoff in the context of "trust," "suspicion," and "rules" and concluded that "the magic spell that can keep us safe from the occasional evil wizard is not suspicion - it's humility. We must recognize that we all make mistakes, we all have blind spots ... once we trust someone, we can all miss the invisible gorillas pounding their chests and warning us we may be in trouble. But those who fell prey to Bernie Madoff forgot that or ignored it and that - that - was their downfall."

Diana B. Henriques

Henriques was a member of the business news team that was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for its coverage of the financial crisis of 2008.

She was also a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting and received three other major awards - the 2005 George Polk Award for Military Reporting, the 2005 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the 2004 Worth Bingham Prize - for her articles on the fleecing of young soldiers by insurance and investment companies, a series that led to investigations, Pentagon regulatory changes and congressional hearings for legislative reforms.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, Ms. Henriques worked with then Metro reporter David Barstow on the paper's coverage of the management of billions of dollars in charity and victim assistance as part of The Times' award-winning "A Nation Challenged" section, and chronicled the fate of Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm that suffered the largest death toll in the attacks.

Ms. Henriques was a member of a team that won the 1999 Gerald R. Loeb Award for deadline reporting, in the large newspaper division, for coverage of the near-collapse of Longterm Capital Management, a hedge fund whose troubles rocked the financial markets in September 1998.

She was also one of four reporters honored for a 1996 series on how wealthy Americans can legally side-step taxes; the four reporters were finalists, in the large newspaper division, of the 1996 Gerald R. Loeb Award, and were winners of the large newspaper division prize for investigative reporting awarded by the Deadline Club, the New York City chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists.

Before joining The Times, Henriques worked for Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly from 1986 until 1989.  While at Barron's, she handled news and feature assignments that spanned the financial scene, from precious metals to corporate profiles; her investigative reporting uncovered a variety of investor fraud cases and shareholder abuses in both the United States and the Canadian markets.  She was a finalist in the magazine division of the 1987 Loeb awards for her examination of the explosive growth in the world's gold supply.

Henriques is the author of The Machinery of Greed: Public Authority Abuse and What to Do About It, (Lexington Books, 1986); Fidelity's World: The Secret Life and Public Power of the Mutual Fund Giant, (Scribners, 1995); and The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders, (Scribners, 2000).

In early 2001, Ms. Henriques served as an adjunct professor in the master's program in business journalism at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. She is a frequent lecturer for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University in Phoenix. She serves on the Board of Governors of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) and is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

The Lecture Series

The lecture series honors the late Paul D. (P.D.) Merrill, a Portland-area business leader and longtime É«ÏãÊÓƵ trustee, supporter and friend.  The annual event creates an opportunity for future business leaders from É«ÏãÊÓƵ and the broader community to learn about and reflect upon the important role that ethical considerations play in our daily choices, and the impact these choices have on our communities.