We sat where you're sitting now. The raw creativity of marketing teams had to be channeled — however unpopular that made us. Nobody else wanted to iron out the fine print with regulators who failed to acknowledge the core issue in a complex case. Someone had to balance management's frustration with counterparties shifting their red lines at the eleventh hour against the need to get the deal over the finish line.

We've been there.

And we've walked in other shoes as well: in slick international corporate environments, in scrappy NGOs trying to make a difference, and in the offices of exasperated public officials. We've seen the good—and the bad—of each setting, in a region that is many things, but rarely dull.