Jeffrey Keith Skilling (born November 25, 1953) is an American businessman who in 2006 was convicted of federal felony charges relating to the Enron scandal.

Skilling, who was CEO of Enron during the company's collapse, was eventually sentenced to 24 years in prison, of which he served 12 after multiple appeals.

He graduated from West Aurora High School and received a full scholarship to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

[17][16] As a consultant for McKinsey, Skilling worked with Enron during 1987, helping the company create a forward market in natural gas.

This plan helped make Enron the largest wholesaler of gas and electricity, with $27 billion traded in a quarter.

In response to fund manager Richard Grubman saying "You know, you are the only financial institution that can't produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings", Skilling replied: "Thank you very much, we appreciate that...

"[23][24][25] In June 2001, Skilling spoke at the Commonwealth Club of California, where he was heckled by Global Exchange protesters wearing pig masks and was partially struck by a pie on stage.

[26] Skilling unexpectedly resigned on August 14 of that year, citing personal reasons, and he soon sold large amounts of his shares in the corporation.

When brought in front of congressional committees, Skilling stated that he had "no knowledge" of the complicated scandal that would eventually result in Enron's bankruptcy.

[29] They argued that Skilling violated his bond's terms by drinking excessively and failing to report his contact with police to federal pretrial services authorities.

Skilling and many of the company's executives had sold huge portions of their own Enron stock before the bankruptcy filing, making a substantial profit.

On December 8, 2015, federal judge Melinda Harmon granted summary judgment to the SEC and permanently barred Skilling from serving as an officer or director of a public company.

[40] Prior to the trial, attorneys for Skilling requested that the notes taken from FBI agents during interviews with Andrew Fastow be given to the defense.

This argument was based on the idea that, even though Skilling committed illegal financial maneuvers, he did so in order to save the company and did not profit from it.

[43] Experts believed Skilling's best chance was in citing a parallel appeals court decision that had dismissed guilty verdicts on three Merrill Lynch bankers accused of helping Enron to inflate profits.

[47] Soon after being hired at Enron, he set up the Performance Review Committee (PRC), a twice-yearly process in which employees were publicly graded by management panels on a scale from 1 to 5, 5 being lowest.

The rankings were assigned on a curve at Skilling's direction, meaning that ten percent of people had to be graded five, regardless of absolute performance.

[3] The first challenge by Skilling's defense was whether or not the federal "honest services fraud" statute (title 18 of the United States Code, section 1346) required the government to prove that Skilling's conduct was intended to achieve "private gain" (instead of being intended to advance his employer's interests); and, if not, if this statute is unconstitutionally vague.

Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor seemed especially bothered by the questioning of one potential juror who reported that she had lost from $50,000 to $60,000 in the Enron debacle.

"How can we be satisfied that a fair and impartial jury was picked when the judge doesn't follow up when the juror said, 'I'm a victim of this crime,'" Sotomayor asked.

[3] Sri Srinivasan, a partner at O'Melveny & Myers, was Skilling's Washington defense attorney,[53] and Justice Department lawyer Michael Dreeben argued for the government.

Federal judge Simeon T. Lake III, who had presided over Skilling's 2006 trial, accepted the deal on June 21, 2013.

In June 2020, Skilling was reported by Reuters to be fundraising for launch of an online oil and gas trading platform named Veld LLC.

His youngest child, John Taylor "JT" Skilling, was found dead from a drug overdose at age 20 in his apartment in Santa Ana, California on February 3, 2011.