Stephen M. Kohn Named 2019 Top Thought Leader in Trust by Trust Across America

Mary Jane Wilmoth

Published On: March 7th, 2019

Now in its 9th year, Trust Across America-Trust Around the World (TAA-TAW), a global leader in organizational trust, celebrates professionals who are transforming the way organizations do business with the honor of Top Thought Leaders in Trust. TAA-TAW announced in its 2019 winter issue of TRUST! Magazine that top whistleblower lawyer Stephen M. Kohn was selected for a second year to receive this honor.

The award celebrates global professionals who walk their talk in terms of trust. This year’s honorees come from a broad functional base including integrity and trust, leadership, culture, compliance and ethics, reputation and risk management, governance, CSR, communications, employee engagement, sales and customer service. They are selected by a panel of judges based on their emphasis on rigor, not popularity. The award is meant to recognize the efforts of those whose work contributes to elevating societal trust.

In recognizing Kohn for the second year TAA-TAW stated, “Steve is a highly valued thought leader for the compliance and ethics profession who has served as an invited RAND white paper author, speaker and participant at numerous RAND Symposia on compliance and ethics topics.”

In 2018, TAA-TAW stated that Kohn is “One of the nation’s leading advocates for corporate and government whistleblowers. Many of his court victories have become landmark precedents in modern workplace law. He is the author of the first legal treatise on whistleblowing and is the worlds most published author on whistleblower protection.”

Kohn is a partner in the whistleblower law firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto. His primary litigation focus includes representing international whistleblowers under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, tax fraud whistleblowers, qui tam reward laws, the False Claims Act, SEC whistleblowers and IRS whistleblowers. In 2012, Kohn’s firm obtained the largest qui tam whistleblower reward given to a single individual in history ($104 million to UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld) and he represents Danske Bank money laundering whistleblower Howard Wilkinson. In 1988, Kohn helped found the National Whistleblower Center, where is currently serves, pro bono, as Executive Director. His eighth book on whistleblower law is the highly respected The New Whistleblower’s Handbook (Lyons Press, 2017)