Anti-Corruption Compliance ~ Unfiltered: Anti-Corruption Compliance in the Middle East

Z Priest

Jul 2016 · Partridge Publishing Singapore

About this ebook

Unfiltered is a satirical and raw discussion about anti-corruption in the Middle East. While informative, it is written in a dark and somewhat rough voice that the author refers to as the pirate. Pirates are not known for their good manners. Unfiltered defines and explains what constitutes a robust anti-corruption program for the Middle East, but it includes some personal anecdotes from the authors twenty years of experience in Saudi Arabia. Unfiltered says things that many in the corporate world can dare to only think about but can never say out loud without risking the unemployment line, court, or jail.

About the author

Z Priest has a BS in criminology and criminal justice and is a certified advanced crime analyst. She lived and worked in the Middle East for twenty years. Her experience with a variety of industries in the Middle East as both a contract specialist and compliance professional gives her a unique insight into the business culture of the region. Priest moved to Saudi Arabia in 1996 with her Saudi national husband. Unable to leave Saudi with her four children when she divorced in 2006, she was forced to make a decision to either leave them behind or stay in the kingdom for her children’s sake and dig in for the long fight ahead. She chose to stay. She became a Saudi national so as not to be separated from her children and was able to come and go from the country of her own accord—a right other Saudi women don’t enjoy. Being a Western woman living independently and working in a profession that is traditionally male, she faced more than her share of gender discrimination. Her attitude that quitting is never an option helped her survive under extremely difficult circumstances. She took on the roles of single mother and female professional head-on in a culture that is openly and unapologetically hostile to both. In Unfiltered, Priest takes on the subject of anti-corruption compliance in the Middle East but in a style that those who know Priest personally and, as readers will quickly come to understand, on her own terms. She dares to relate her story in the same recalcitrant female voice that tended to get her into hot water while in Saudi. Priest once received an informal warning letter from her manager that included phrases like “advise that the employee take less ownership of her work,” “care . . . less,” and “a cowboy,” a letter her manager neither signed nor dared to deliver himself. Priest is a woman that absolutely challenges the cultural norms of the country and is not afraid to take on the good ole boys’ network of the Middle East. A graduate of the school of hard knocks with a whole lot to say about it, she lost a lot of battles in her fight against corruption but is still determined to win the war—although she openly admits she may be a bit delusional in her optimism. In Unfiltered, Priest is officially raising the black, and she is just getting started!