The Executive Director of the BPWA coordinated a quick meeting for me for the following morning, on Day #3, with a Palestinian businessman, after learning of my experience developing anti-fraud programs for corporations in the U.S. as a fraud and IT auditor. She scheduled a 10a.m. meeting the next morning with this businessman who is working on anti-fraud programs in the Middle East and Africa. I was delighted to hear that there were fraud fighters in the Middle East like me, as I had just spent 10 years in American corporate business as a fraud and IT auditor, a very tough arena and one where auditors don’t always have many friends, and it takes someone that accepts this. I discovered he is also a CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner), and member of the ACFE in Austin (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners), and is a board member on their Advisory Council, as am I. A very small world indeed! We discussed fraud theory, and global actions to combat fraud for about an hour, and I asked him how I could help him combat fraud in the Middle East, using the knowledge that I had, and in developing Honeywell’s preventative fraud program for travel and expense. His team is very qualified, and have deep knowledge of the anti-fraud field, he himself is a CPA, CFE, and also has an MBA. He is planning to have an international fraud Forum in the Middle East in 2013, which absolutely thrilled me. I could barely stay in my chair! Due to the high levels of corruption in the Middle East, and in Jordan, there is a push and mandate by King Abdullah for increased investigations of potentially fraudulent officials. This is good progress forward, but the investigators who are doing the fraud investigations, must be qualified, and be able to know how to “sniff” out fraud. I know even in the United States, the universities do not have mandatory classes on ethics or fraud detection in most business schools even-I was never taught this as an undergraduate business student. I had to learn fraud detection on my own time through independent study and through my work on-the-job in the audit roles I obtained. This is something I always wanted to change about the U.S. business programs at universities, because graduates are left on their own in the corporate arena to figure out where fraud is, if they go into the auditing profession, it is not taught. This is another element that he and I discussed, as he wants to implement fraud trainings at university business programs in the Middle East and even in the U.S. and has contacted an American professor about doing this, and is trying to line up trainings where he can speak on this at American universities. This was a delightful meeting, and I was invited to come to the Middle East, to assist with this Fraud Forum in 2013, and would like very much to do so if possible. The fraud fighters of the world certainly must stick together, and learn from each other, and share and spread the knowledge to anyone interested, because to me, ethics are crucial and its not negotiable, and to see that there is a concern for ethics worldwide, gives me some hope about the world on a global scale. We scheduled a time to meet again this next week to discuss next steps, and how I may perhaps be able to assist at the Forum. So topics so far covered and that I’ve been working on in the Middle East: Social Entrepreneurship awareness, Anti-Fraud/Money Laundering Education, and Pornography & ties to Trafficking Awareness and Education – more than I expected to be working on here J.
We also had lunch at a lovely French style bistro, and I met another acquaintance. What I’ve discovered is how small of a city Amman is in relation to how interconnected people are here, and how truly it is a “small” city in this sense, much different from America. We also ran into my roommate’s cousins at the Amman Marriott, when we visited to see the Christmas tree, and they had a Santa Clause with brown hair (Santa must be coloring his hair these days;)) visiting the children at the hotel, in which we had a very nice dinner with them after, and it is very common to have this happen, where one may run into many different people they know being an established resident of Amman.
The traffic in Amman has given me several heart attacks. There was almost a five car pile up the other day, and we couldn’t tell what in the world caused this, as anyone can make there “own lane” in the road at any time-there was nothing in the road, and no barriers, that would cause someone to suddenly stop. Drivers do not use turn signals, and may not even look when they are turning onto another main road, they just drive unto the road, with no regard to oncoming traffic. The police do not seem to be concerned about this, and there really are not many consequences for this. If an accident occurs on the road, if its in the middle of the highway, the drivers cannot move their vehicles, they must stay put, even though they are blocking all lanes of traffic, until the police come and take the report.
The BPWA offices have been extraordinary to work with everyday, and the Executive Director and staff, have been so nice to me, and I am enjoying working with them immensely. The Executive Director, has gone out of her way to accommodate me, and to establish connections for me with other organizations, organizing presentations on the topics of anti-fraud, human trafficking, and social entrepreneurship. Many people are not as aware of social entrepreneurship I’ve discovered also, so spreading this knowledge to students I hope will be very valuable, and provide them with new ideas for implementation and hopefully will provide a different way of thinking about how businesses can be started, and can help change the world!
Christian churches in Amman, where generally only 2% of the population is Christian:
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