Pearl Initiative, a business-led non-profit organisation promoting a corporate culture of transparency and accountability across the Gulf Region’s Private Sector, held a roundtable in Kuwait City to raise awareness among Kuwait-based companies on the value of bolstering policies pertaining to transparency, ethics and risk management practices in business.

The event, titled ‘The Changing Face of Business Integrity: A Kuwaiti Perspective’ featured a panel of experts, while convening over 35 senior business professionals from compliance, audit, governance, legal and finance fields, who participated in the discussions.

Kuwait is taking commendable measures as part of the new Kuwait 2035 Vision, to promote business practices in line with international best practice standards and to drive sustainable development in the country. The roundtable, held against the backdrop of these new developments, underlined the need for the Private Sector to implement integrity-led corporate strategies by strengthening audit standards and other monitoring processes to protect shareholder value, boost investor confidence and investment flows, and ultimately, fuel entrepreneurship, economic growth and sustainable development.

Speakers on the panel included Ahmed Al Kiswani, Partner, PwC, Dr. Lee G. Caldwell, Associate Dean, American University of Kuwait and Eman M. Al Awadhi, Group Communications Director, KIPCO.

Panellists highlighted the rewards that private companies can reap from embracing integrity and ethics as a cornerstone of their business conduct and as a pillar of effective management, as opposed to pigeonholing these key corporate governance fundamentals as a matter reserved solely for compliance functions.

The panel also offered practical and actionable steps to implement integrity practices, citing real-life case studies of organisations who have tailored integrity strategies to suit their needs and improved their competitiveness and work environment as a result, while also ensuring business integrity practices become a unifying force among various stakeholders within their ecosystem.

Yasmine Omari, Executive Director, Pearl Initiative, stated: “Efficient and competitive companies help to ensure healthier markets and promote greater investor confidence. The Private Sector can promote greater integrity in business by adopting stronger internal controls, ethics and anti-corruption standards and by putting in place robust corporate governance systems, ensuring business dealings are conducted responsibly and transparently.”

The panel discussion concluded with a Q&A session that allowed the audience to engage with panel members to gain deeper insights into the topics explored.

The roundtable was held as part of the Pearl Initiative’s Anti-Corruption Best Practices programme, supported by the Siemens Integrity Initiative. As part of the programme, the Pearl Initiative has developed the Gulf Integrity Indicator as a free tool to gauge the level of integrity policies within an organisation. It is anticipated that by participating in the indicator exercise, organisations can benchmark their practices with regional practices, and identify areas for development.

Founded in 2010, the Pearl Initiative is a Gulf business–led non-profit organisation promoting a corporate culture of accountability and transparency as key drivers of competitiveness and sustainable economic growth across the Gulf Region. The organisation develops programmes and publishes regional research reports and case studies to promote the implementation of higher standards of corporate governance amongst business and student communities across the Gulf Region.