After graduating in Industrial engineering, I started as a junior project planner in a company who worked as a main contractor for mechanical installation of a petrochemical plant in Persian Gulf. There, I learnt the basics of planning engineering and got the experience of day to day activity planning and reporting, how to liaise with the client also had a chance to be involved in invoicing the company's performance.

When the job finished in that plant, I moved to another company in the same area to work as a PMC (project management contractor) project planner to which the company's job was to supervise civil and installation contractors on behalf of the client. I acquired a great experience of how to deal with contractors, monitor them, to work cooperatively and avoid dispute with them, as well as gaining the experience of monitoring EPC phases of a project all through Primavera project programmes. After a year being there I also got promoted to lead a team of planners which helped me to develop my Leadership/Management skills.

Having worked for several years, I felt I need to expand my level of academic knowledge at work and expose myself in an international environment; hence I joined an MSc. programme in International Project Management at Sweden where I gained a lot of interpersonal experience of how to work in multicultural environment. Having the second year of my Masters in England also gave me even more opportunity and self-confidence of putting my knowledge into practice in the UK. Therefore, I joined Caterpillar Articulated Trucks as project planner and involved in new product development where our job was to plan for future products right from the concept engineering up to the start of production stage.

After Caterpillar I joined a company (IEC/ Scottish Power) in Power sector to which I gained experience of how to work independently and also how to manage a portfolio of projects (up to 30 at the same time in different stages). There I managed to work under pressure and also learnt how to deal with numerous stakeholders and what and how to report when you have an overflow of work and information.

Working for 2 years for that company I decided to move back to my favourite industry i.e. Oil & Gas where I think I can learn more as I think the key in a planning world is "constant learning".