Questionable ethics

When Executive asked Joe Saddi, senior partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ premium consulting arm Strategy&, and before that global chairman of predecessor firm Booz & Company, if there was a shared greatest challenge for Arab companies, he answered without a hint of hesitation: “There is. It is capacity building.” Our subsequent research into the defining challenges of consulting firms working in the Middle East and North Africa (see “Strategy & war“) led us to conclude that there was a more than slight whiff of irony to that answer. As evidenced by the regional consulting industry’s ongoing talent war — which is a symptom of a shortage in human capital — the strengthening and development of human capital appear to be still an enormous need not only for the average Arab corporation but also, and perhaps more crucially, for any player in Big Consulting attempting to cover the region with competent services. In