Our recently concluded 2011 Annual General meeting featured two excellent presentations followed by intense and intelligent discussion.

Ferdinand Balfoort spoke about "Building Successfull Business Partnerships in China". Ferdinand spends a good deal of time in China in his capacity as a contracted executive of a NZ company with a joint venture in China. He described the practicalities of managing risks in China, including doing due diligence on your joint venture partner and building good, non-corrupt relationships with local regulatory authorities. Ferdinand, an internal auditor by training and ex-partner of PWC Poland, is committed to integrity in business. He is currently working on a masters degree on corruption and business ethics. 

Sylvie Leduc of Ignite Consultants presented the latest results of the project they are conducting on behalf of TI-NZ analysing "The Derivation of New Zealand’s High Ranking on the Corruption Perception Index." Ignite's consultants are investigating which survey questions go into New Zealand's CPI ranking, who answers them, and what can and can’t we conclude about the likely level of corruption in New Zealand on the basis of the Corruption Perception Index.  Ignite's report will be posted here soon.