Infoquest

From our Infoquest family to yours, we wish you and your loved ones a blessed Eid Al Adha filled with peace, gratitude, and togetherness. 🐑

Saudi banking regulation has never been more robust. SAMA sets the rules on banking. The NCA owns cybersecurity. SDAIA enforces data privacy. The Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Investment, and the CMA each have their own requirements. Most banks know what the rules are. The hard part is building the teams and systems to follow them consistently and in a way that holds up. Our latest Expert Voices sits down with a Senior Compliance Specialist from inside the Saudi banking sector to break down what's changed, what's hard, and what separates banks that get it right from those that don't. Full piece in the comments.

The insurance industry is undergoing its most significant operational restructuring in decades. At the center of that shift: AI is compressing weeks of underwriting review into seconds. More notably, claims that once required human intervention at every stage are now settling autonomously. The numbers have shown this as well: at Allianz Australia, 50% of travel claims are fully automated, and at Zurich UK, personal injury processing is 30% faster. And yet, the technology itself is not the bottleneck. What's holding the industry back are core systems built 20–30 years ago, infrastructure never designed for real-time analytics, still running underneath every modern insurer. Until that foundation changes, AI remains a capability layered on top of a structural constraint. The insurers pulling ahead understand this. As a result, they are re-platforming to cloud-native infrastructure, partnering with specialist insuretech players for underwriting and fraud, and building digital capability from within rather than acquiring it externally. Sometime ago, we explored what this transition looks like in practice, with Özkan Okumus, former senior leader at Allianz, Zurich, and BBVA. Full article in the comments.

This weekend, we went out on one of our regular team hikes ⛰️ Fresh air, good conversations, lots of laughs, and a pretty interesting trail along the way. As always, it was great getting everyone together outside of work and spending time as a team in a different setting. It’s something we place a lot of importance on, taking time to disconnect, recharge, and strengthen the team beyond the day-to-day work environment. A good reset before jumping back into another busy week.

Transcript libraries and live expert calls are not the same tool. Knowing which one to use, and when, is what separates fast, grounded research from research that leaves gaps. Transcripts are useful. Some expert network firms hold thousands of past interviews covering industries and market themes. For early-stage orientation, background on a new sector, or getting an analyst up to speed quickly, they do the job well. But a transcript recorded 14 months ago, in response to someone else's diligence agenda, cannot answer the specific questions in front of you today. Markets move. Management teams change. And the expert most relevant to your deal, a recently departed VP at the target, a channel partner who just ended a distribution agreement, is rarely in any library. The practical framework is simple: Use transcripts to orient. Use live calls to decide. 👉 Full breakdown in the comments.

The quality of your expert match starts before the call; it starts with how you write your brief. Six elements make the difference: project context, expert profile, required experience, key topics, exclusions, and logistics. Clients who spend 15 extra minutes on their brief complete their projects 30 to 40% faster. We built an interactive brief template directly into the article, fill it in, copy it, and send it straight to our team. 👉 Template and full guide in the comments. #ExpertNetworks

The SEC has brought over 200 insider trading cases since 2010. A significant number involved expert network calls as the conduit. ⚖️ Expert networks are a legitimate and powerful research tool, used every day by the best-run hedge funds, PE firms, and consultancies in the world. But the line between legal industry intelligence and material non-public information isn't always obvious, and the consequences of crossing it are severe: criminal convictions, nine-figure fines, and shuttered funds. Three things worth understanding: - An expert who left a company last month still carries MNPI obligations — "I just left" is not a safe harbor - The risk isn't limited to the expert. Under the Tipper/Tippee doctrine, both sides of the call can face criminal liability - If MNPI is disclosed on a call, the first step is non-negotiable: halt all trading in that security immediately, before anything else The good news is that a well-run expert network project is entirely defensible; it just requires the right screening, the right questions, and the right documentation at every step. At Infoquest, compliance screening happens before any call is scheduled, not after. 👉 Full breakdown in the comments. #ExpertNetworks #Compliance #MNPI

Expert networks earn their place, connecting private equity firms with the people who've worked inside the industry. Three things worth knowing: - From signed NDA to binding offer, PE firms often have 4 to 8 weeks. Expert calls deliver targeted insights in days, not weeks - The most value comes from running 5 to 15 calls per deal, triangulating across ex-employees, customers, and competitors - One firm ran 12 calls on a $400M carve-out. Experts flagged overstated pricing power and an undisclosed tech gap. The firm walked away. The buyer who didn't? They underperformed. 👉 Full breakdown in the comments. #PrivateEquity #DueDiligence #ExpertNetworks

Last week, we were at Lebanese American University's career fair, and the conversations were exactly what we hoped for. We met a lot of sharp people asking the right questions about what working at Infoquest actually looks like: cold calling experts, market research, clear KPIs, weekly targets, and real ownership from day one. It's always great to connect with people who are genuinely curious about the industry, and even more so with those looking to join us. If you missed us, you haven't missed your shot. We're still hiring for the Associate role and a few other positions. Apply using the link in the comments.