By Adam Turteltaub
adam.turteltaub@corporatecompliance.org
If you look through the events section of the SCCE website and wander over to the Regional Compliance & Ethics Conferences section, you’ll likely notice something strange and surprising. We’re holding a regional meeting in Sarajevo this October.
It’s not where you would expect us to be. In fact, we don’t even have a member there.
The city is located in Bosnia Herzegovina, which scores 83 on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which puts it right below China, Brazil and India.
But there is a group there trying to turn things around. It’s led by Bojan Bajić, who is tireless in his efforts to promote compliance in the community. He and his colleague Višnja Marilović will be recognized at our international award dinner at the 2017 Compliance and Ethics Institute for their work, particularly their efforts to pass a whistleblower protection law.
In many ways, his efforts are reminiscent of what Shin Jae Kim has done in Brazil. She built a law practice around compliance, got involved with the SCCE and encouraged us to come down long before Operation Car Wash was in the news.
Today, Brazil is the second largest country for membership in the SCCE. Only the US is larger. We sold out the Sao Paulo Academy in 2016 and have for several years now. In 2017 for the first time, we’ll offer two Academies in Brazil, plus a regional conference in Sao Paulo.
Our resources are finite, which means we can’t be everywhere. But we will continue to support the development of the compliance profession, even in countries where the road is long and steep, even if that may seem like a strange choice to make.
See you in Sarajevo?
[clickToTweet tweet=”SCCE is Doing Something Strange” quote=”SCCE is Doing Something Strange” theme=”style3″]