Tell us more about your professional background.
The first half of my career was as a risk consultant for Marsh, Zurich and DNV. The consulting job also took me abroad to Malaysia which really defined the second half of my career. I am fortunate to be in a profession that allows extensive travel and opportunities to work abroad. I realised pretty quickly into my stint in Malaysia that working outside of the UK and Europe was something I wanted to keep doing.
As a result I have spent the last eight years working across the Middle East with Qatar Foundation and Saudi Aramco before joining Lukoil who were looking for someone with oil and gas experience and extensive risk experience to manage risks across their mega project in Iraq.
What’s a typical day like as a risk manager in Iraq?
Working in Iraq is both unique and challenging. I work on site in shifts – a month on and a month off – and in order to get to the site when I first arrive for my shift, we are greeted by several heavy armoured vehicles, six to ten armoured security guards and provided a bullet proof vest! The site is about two and a half hours drive from the airport.
Once on site, you are confined to the security perimeter area which is home to an oil treatment facility, well-pads, pipelines, gas power plant and a few other treatment facilities.
We work 12 hours a day which involves a lot of site visits, meetings with managers and superintendents as well as engineers to fully understand the risks associated with running the site.
What do you enjoy most about your job in oil and gas?
Risk management is still a very new concept with very few people understanding it or even being aware of it. This means you always need to sell the concept in different ways depending on the person you are dealing with. Following on from this, assuming you are successful, it becomes very clear how the risk culture within the organisation as a whole improves. It gives you a great sense of satisfaction when you get a call from a department or facility manager requesting a risk workshop. That’s when you know you have been successful in your job.
In terms of working on a major project in Iraq, the most enjoyable aspect of my work is being exposed to extremely unique risks that I would otherwise never get the chance to experience. It will certainly help me in future roles, especially for companies considering expanding into new territories.
What are the challenges?
The major challenges of my job are working in shifts. As I work on a month on and month off basis, it means that for a full month someone else is responsible for risk management. This can lead to inconsistencies in risks or risk approach, missed communication and a lack of continuity. Additionally, upon returning to site it can be quite difficult to catch up with what has been going on for a full month.
How has your role developed and what are your career ambitions?
The last 15 years has been a mixture of undertaking various types of risk management across all levels of organisations. I have been involved with ERM at senior management team levels, business continuity at IT, operations and strategic levels and project risk management at project level. More recently I have been getting involved in heavy quantitative analysis. This variety of work over the 15 years have allowed me to gain a deep understanding of all risk management disciplines and I feel it will allow me to meet my career ambitions of becoming a more senior level risk professional such as a risk director and chief risk officer.
