2012 news beyondcompliance

Beyond compliance

23 May 2012

The article at a glance

Cambridge MBA students take part in a four-week internship at the Pearl Initiative in the United Arab Emirates Four MBA students from …

Cambridge MBA students take part in a four-week internship at the Pearl Initiative in the United Arab Emirates

Four MBA students from Cambridge Judge Business School recently took part in an intensive four-week internship in the UAE, which gave them the opportunity to present their findings on good practice case study examples to an audience of business leaders in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Neil Gonsalvez, Helen Sian Nash, Shelley Wallace and Yoshiko Tsuwaki Habe were joined by another MBA student from the American University of Sharjah, UAE, to work on a project called ‘Case Building for Good Business Practices in the GCC’.

The students then presented their preliminary research during an event on 22 April entitled ‘Beyond Compliance: GCC Good Practice Case Studies’ to around 70 chief executives and directors of finance, strategy, compliance and sustainability of GCC companies. Topics covered included: effective board processes, the implementation and embedding integrity-related policies and integrated reporting.

The internship at the Pearl Initiative was set up in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships, to improve transparency, accountability and responsible practices in businesses across the Arabian Gulf.

Badr Jafar, Co-Founder of the Pearl Initiative, and Alumni Council Chairman and MST alumnus at Cambridge Judge Business School, commented:

The importance of the good practices research work carried out by the MBA team is reinforcing a positive message about what leading companies are doing on a practical and day to day basis to improve their business practices within the region.”

The Pearl Initiative will publish the full report on the good practice case studies in July 2012.