General Manager
SSH
Total years of experience :23 years, 10 Months
SSH is a Kuwaiti building and infrastructure design and construction supervision company operating across the GCC and with offices in the UK and South Africa. My role is responsible for the general management of the SSH business in the UAE including:
• Annual budget and monthly forecasting of profit and loss reporting and performance
• Liquidity forecasting and improving the regions monthly performance to best in group since 2018
• Project management, project financial performance and the project management team
• Commercial management of contracts with clients, sub-consultants and vendors
• Supply chain management of all procurement, tender evaluation and delivery life cycle
• Establishment of a new professional licensed Dubai Economic Department legal entity registered as an “unlimited” Architect and Engineer of Record with Dubai Municipality and liquidation of a redundant Dubai Branch of a foreign entity
• Managing and optimising efficiency in the corporate environments in Dubai and Abu Dhabi while growing headcounts from 120 to 180 in 2018 and reducing headcount to 120 in 2020.
• Managing authority relations, business licenses and classifications, visas, banking relationships.
• UAE businesses include SSH Design FZ-LLC and SSHIC International Engineering Consultants LLC in Dubai and DAR SSH International Engineering Consultants LLC in Abu Dhabi
• Key clients include Emaar, Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Modon
Responsible for strategic operational support for the SSH business in Oman, KSA and Bahrain including
• Annual budget and monthly forecasting of profit and loss reporting and performance
• Project management, project financial performance and supporting the project management team
Special Projects
• Reporting to the C-suite in Q1 2020 to provide a holistic plan to dimension the regional business in a volatile business environment with flexible delivery models and regional asset consolidation.
• Oversight of business continuity plan execution at the onset of the COVID19 outbreak in the UAE which successfully transitioned 90 office based employees to their homes within one week.
Obermeyer is a German building and infrastructure design and construction supervision business with the Middle East regional office based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. My role was responsible for the overall management of Obermeyer Middle East GmbH including the Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai offices including:
• Reporting to the Board of Obermeyer Holding in Munich, Germany.
• Member of the Obermeyer Group Development Board.
• Restructured the company to deliver operational efficiency and reduce overhead by 15%.
• Established a foreign owned branch professional business license and office in Dubai
• Delivered year on year revenue growth of 20% backed by responsible liquidity planning.
• Growing the business and increasing head count from 80 to 110 with higher efficiency
• Increased the in-house skill sets of the UAE company through addition of Project Management, Infrastructure Engineering, Interior Design and Sustainability Engineering to the existing Architecture, MEP and Structural Engineering capabilities.
• Developed an ISO9001, 14001, 18001 compliant Integrated Management System
• Key clients include Mubadala, Musanada and DEWA.
Responsible for Alan Dick Middle East FZE and Al Bawardi Alan Dick LLC:
• Bids and Tenders (10’s of million USD per annum)
• Procurement (millions of USD per annum)
Scope:
• Structural and civil construction projects across all Emirates of the UAE
• Oilfield civil and structural projects in areas operated by GASCO, Al Hosn, ZADCO, Total Fina, QP
• Telecommunication civil and technical network rollout for cellular, microwave and data networks
• Security solutions construction and installation along UAE border, in oilfields and nuclear power station
• Airport surveillance structural and civil work at DXB, DWC and SHJ
Alan Dick was a UK based global telecommunication and structural engineering and project management business with a Middle East regional office in Dubai, UAE that was spun off to be independently owned.
As a partner in Alan Dick Middle East Holdings Limited which owns the subsidiaries Alan Dick Middle East FZE and Al Bawardi Alan Dick LLC, I was appointed to the Board of Directors to assist on immediate crisis management and short term business restructuring.
Immediate goals were to overcome a cash crisis by negotiating and implementing new creditor payment plans, the acceleration of specific projects revenue collection, and the strict management of cash. The secondary goal was to streamline the business to retain profitability which included optimizing human resources, fleet, insurances and real estate. The measures achieved success with the cash management plan enabling solvency throughout the crisis and the financial year end results meeting target.
In 2014 following the successful restructure and restoring shareholder value I negotiated the sale of my partnership and exited the business in May 2015.
I was recruited into the Middle East in 2005 to develop the cellular technology and in-building solutions business. In 2006 after securing a high profile project I recruited a team and delivered the first turnkey rollout contract awarded by a new national operator to a non-vendor company. The team was rewarded in 2007 with a further turnkey site acquisition and civil works construction contract covering five emirates of the UAE after which I expanded the team into a Program Management Office. Based on the success in the UAE, I was tasked to take over management of the company’s Qatar operations and office.
Responsibilities:
• Project management (approx. 10m USD per annum)
• Customer relationship management
• Contract management
• Resource Management
• Financial reporting
• Compliance
• Procurement
Scope:
• Site acquisition of greenfield, rooftop and indoor sites from municipality or private owners
• Civil construction projects across five emirates of the UAE
• Installation and commissioning of telecom, security, broadcast and surveillance systems
• RF design and optimization of 2G, 3G, Microwave, WIFI and WiMAX networks
• Mains grid power connections and off grid power solutions of diesel or hybrid battery
• Building cabling in high rise or campus sites of fibre optic, data and coaxial cable
• Building rooftop infrastructure design and installation
• Software development for bespoke database and project management applications
• Oilfield civil and structural design and construction for towers up to 150m
• Manufacturing of bespoke mobile base stations and re-deployable site products
• Design and supply of pre-fabricated buildings for rural or urban environments
Commercial Manager for Wireless Program Office.
• Responsible for bid estimation and production up to $10 million.
• Benchmarking internal resource effectiveness against external subcontractors.
• Evaluating bid cost estimation with post project delivery cost reports.
• Managing engineers, technicians and lines staff during costing and bidding solutions for turnkey Radio, Cellular, Core Network, Data and Emergency Services networks.
• Developing solutions for microwave trunk radio networks of PDH and SDH technology. Detailed designs include multi-hop point-to-point, multiple ring topology of up to 30 sites, equipment selection and channel planning.
Project Manager
Nokia 3G core network rollout for Optus on a labour intensive delivery program of $250k. Reporting to Nokia and responsible for 30 Telstra staff and subcontractors. Delivering schedule reports, milestone tracking and invoicing. Coordinating delivery of Free Issue Material. Managing internal fleet and human resources. Survey, Installation and Commissioning of MSC, BSC, RNC and MGW sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
In-Building Coverage for multi-band IBC systems designed to support CDMA, GSM, DCS and WCDMA for Telstra in every Australian capital city. Scope includes site survey, design, installation, optimization and acceptance. Managing internal design and installation teams and external subcontractor installation companies. Solutions include Andrew Britecell, MMR and passive DAS’s.
GSM Number Range Management by Implementing Six Sigma processes in new Telstra departments. Responsible for a $2 million budget and cross coordination of six Telstra business units to ensure project implementation and timely delivery.
Optimization Team Leader for DTAC GSM IBC rollout
• Delivering over 180 sites over 18 months project in phase 1 and 2.
• Reporting weekly to Nokia Thailand.
• Completing acceptance and handover meetings with Nokia engineers and managers.
• Responsible for 15 engineers and technicians of Thai, Indian or Australian nationality.
Radio Network Planning Engineer
• Completing IBC survey, design, optimisation and acceptance testing.
• Design customers include DTAC, Orange and BFKT.
• Vendor equipment includes Nokia, Alcatel and Motorola.
• Technology includes GSM and CDMA 1xRTT, and use of Ericsson TEMS and Agilent Nitro.
Microwave Network Engineer
• Transmission network planning and design in northern Thailand.
• Design includes network topology, path profiling, link budgets, antenna selection, frequency and diversity selection.
• Vendor equipment was DMC Stratex for the Orange mobile network backhaul.
• Managed an ADSL corporate installation project for Optus.
• Designed small and medium capacity PDH microwave radio systems.
• Designed exchange infrastructure upgrades for Telstra ISP Bigpond.
First 4 of 12 units in the MBA course
with Honours