Harry Broadman

Corruption has become one of the most pervasive and pernicious risks facing corporations, banks, private equity funds and other investors in the international marketplace. Not only can corruption add sizeable costs to the bottom line and engender damage to reputations and brand images for many years, it can also result in very serious criminal penalties, including imprisonment, and very large fines. Despite the fact that an increasing number of governments have been either strengthening existing sanctions against corruption or establishing wholly new anti-corruption regimes, rarely, it seems, does a month go by without the appearance of a news headline about a firm being charged with involvement in corrupt activities. At the same time, businesses often complain about the fact that because their rivals are not being held to the same corruption standards, unfair competitive advantages are being created; or that anti-corruption authorities don't understand that for some cultures, certain business practices are not deemed as corruption but as traditional ways to carry out commerce. Drawing on his considerable experience counseling businesses on structuring corruption de-risking strategies as well as advising governments on the design and execution of anti-corruption reform programs, Broadman shares his insights on the "dos and don'ts" and best practice approaches to mitigating the risk of corruption in foreign markets. What are the various laws, regulations and enforcement institutions both at home and in key markets abroad most pertinent to corruption issues? What are the most effective strategies for combatting incipient corruption? What options are available to deal with competitors who are seemingly immune to corruption sanctions? How should a business's compliance practices be designed and implemented? How can individuals or entities who are likely to present corruption vulnerabilities be systematically identified through due diligence at the very outset? What are the most effective responses to the discovery of corrupt activities? Which remedial steps are likely to have the largest payoffs? In dealing with such questions, Broadman offers a window on the trends in the incidence of and responses to corruption in key foreign markets, e.g., China and Russia. He also brings to bear recent innovative approaches being used to build in-country alliances to help inoculate against corruption risks. By punctuating his presentation with real cases of what has worked and what has not, audiences come away with a much better understanding of how to successfully operate in the international arena.

The conventional wisdom on Wall Street, inside the Capital Beltway, in the union hall, and throughout the shopping mall is that it is inevitable that China will soon dominate the global economy. While at present, doubts are voiced due to the current slowdown in China's output and the bubble in its real estate sector, at the fundamental level those concerns are widely seen as temporary speed-bumps in China's inexorable march to be the world's economic captain. A deeper understanding of the underlying structure and functioning of Chinese banks and enterprises, the framework governing policy-making in Beijing, the arc of the Communist Party's stronghold over the economy, and the nexus of environmental, health, and social challenges affords a different perspective. What are China's real economic and policy risks? What role does the absence of democracy in the country play in China's economic fortunes? How much has the Chinese economy in fact changed since the advent of reform in 1978? Where are there opportunities for China's long-term growth? Having extensively worked throughout China at the field level since 1993, Broadman offers a fresh perspective on the trajectory of China's economic destiny.

His views on the economic future of China will stimulate you to re-think the conventional wisdom.

Twenty-five years have passed since the formal disintegration of the Soviet economic bloc that had been dominated by Russia. For 70 years before then, with the formation of the bloc, Eurasian continent's long economic history of international commerce with much of the rest of the world was interrupted, largely isolating almost half a billion people from the modern global marketplace.

Under Vladimir Putin's rule over the past decade and a half, two new regional economic blocs have been emerging. One, comprised of Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe, has tended toward integration with the advanced countries in Western Europe and have generally enjoyed relatively high national incomes. The other bloc, comprised of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of the former Soviet Union, is significantly poorer and has been pulling back toward a Russia-centric economic sphere. Its economies are still dominated by commodity trade, and risk non or very limited participation in a modern global economy. As we enter the latter half of the second decade of the 21st Century, what are the economic, political and policy drivers of this seeming return to the status quo ante Soviet Union? Is it actually a return, or was there not much of a change--in any facet--to begin with? Is foreign investment in the CIS a fool's errand at this juncture? Have Putin's extraterritorial geopolitical actions in Ukraine and elsewhere, coupled with the West's sanctions, sowed the seeds to his downfall? Broadman delivers a unique perspective on the current and prospective state of affairs in Russia. Colored by his hands-on experience at the front-line of the formulation and implementation of Russia's economic reforms and the subsequent economic crisis during the 1990s and stretching for almost a decade, Broadman sheds a bright light on the sources and the sustainability of the country's political economy risks. But perhaps uniquely, Broadman also shares his insights as to where and when new market opportunities could well arise in an emergent Russia.

Over the past several years, interest in Africa as a destination for investment has been growing at a startling clip. A few niche private equity firms were the first to make serious inroads into the continent more than a decade ago. But only more recently have a growing number of multinational corporations and the largest private equity firms, as well as a variety of other institutional investors, "discovered" Africa. Still, too few business leaders and policy-makers in the US, the EU and other advanced countries are aware that for the past two decades, much of sub-Saharan Africa has been enjoying a relatively uninterrupted period of robust growth, where, on average, there's been an annual increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 5 percent over those 20 years. Moreover, while most investors, economists and policy makers forecast that Africa would suffer the greatest economic damage from the recent global financial crisis, the exact opposite was the case: pound for pound, the continent proved to be the most resilient region of the world economy. What's behind the excitement over Africa? Is it a real opportunity; or just the investment de jure? How are investors coping with the risks? And how do those risks compare with other regions of the world? Given the vast size, the large number and the heterogeneity of the countries on the continent, how do businesses and investors determine which ones are the stand-outs, and which are the ones to avoid? Having spent time in more than half of the number of African states, Broadman speaks authoritatively about the prospects for Africa's long-term growth, the use of innovative approaches for mitigating risks, and how to assess and capitalize on new market opportunities on the continent. Broadman reveals pivotal developments and trends taking place in a number of African countries that disrupt long-held views about doing business in the region. Audiences come away surprised to learn that this is 'not your grandfather's' Africa; indeed, the changes are happening so quickly and in unanticipated ways that this is not even 'your father's Africa