Bethany McLean (born December 12, 1970) is an editor at large and highly regarded columnist for Fortune magazine and is best known as the co-author, with Fortune colleague Peter Elkind, of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (ISBN 1591840082), exposing the corrupt business practices of Enron officials. The book was the result of her reporting on Enron for the magazine and she is widely acknowledged as being the first journalist to question Enron's inflated stock price with her article in the March 5, 2001 issue of Fortune magazine entitled, "Is Enron Overpriced?". The book was later made into an Academy Award nominated documentary. Her column, The Bulldog, appears regularly in Fortune Magazine.
McLean grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota and received her BA in English and mathematics at Williams College in 1992. After college and prior to joining Fortune she worked as an investment analyst on Wall Street for Goldman Sachs. McLean has also made appearances on the The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, acting as an observer of the trials of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. In 2002 she signed a contract with Penguin books to write her version of the story of Enron.
