Abdullah Interviews Shaheen Al-Khudhari

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“You do what ? “ was the first thing I told him when we first met. We were both in a Master’s program course, doing the break the ice trick where everybody speaks about himself. I encountered many interesting people I wish I could pull in here soon.

Shaheen, however, was extremely pleaseant, heart wise, you know me, thats how I get attached to people, he became an instant friend of mine. We traded tricks, cheats and under table gossip. HAH! (not!)

Anyway, seriously the guy is brilliant, young, motivated and has my favorite feature in a human being, DOWN TO EARTH.

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ok so throw it all out, talk about yourself.

Shaheen Mansour Al-Khudhari, i’m 25 years old, i’m so interested in traveling which is the key for new experiences and i’m in love with something called project management and business development programs.

I got my bachelor degree from Kuwait University majoring in Business Administration and MIS, I took many training courses and certificates but the most important one I got is Project Management Professional “PMP” Currently I’m studying for the Master’s of Business Administration degree in the American University of the Middle East, and last week was the end of the first year which was a nightmare for me, I believe you understand why it was a nightmare, you know the mixture of work, study and business.

After graduation in three days, I started working as a payable accountant with Schlumberger which is one of the major global companies in the field of Oil industry, after that I went to work with one of the investment companies in Kuwait as a business analyst, and then I got the opportunity to work with one of the leading logistics company in the region, British Link Kuwait Group “BLK” which has most of its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, my first job at BLK was an IT manager but now along with that i’m a project manager for some of the company projects in north of Iraq (Kurdistan).

In 2008 I’ve established a new division in BLK for providing digital advertisement solutions, where we provide and implement out of the box advertisement solutions/ideas, we’ve done few projects in Kuwait but most of our work is in north of Iraq and soon in Bahrain and Turkey.

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Why you picked up Iraq to do your projects?

Well, it started with a phone call from my colleagues in Iraq asking me that if I can build an 80 square meter (10m X 8m) outdoor screen and a network of 15 interactive LCD kiosks, I answered him with “Give me more details and everything is possible”, and after that phone call in a week I found myself in China, Korea, Dubai and Iraq. Since that we started to get more projects in the same field and I started to go to Iraq on a monthly basis.

We are building advertisements networks and implementing advertisements solutions in Iraq that you wouldn’t see something similar to it in Dubai or Kuwait, especially when it comes to the customer interactions and information imposing. I always wish to do the same in Kuwait but its so difficult and complicated, because buyers are not so confident and they are seeking for typical things, also paper work and government procedures are complicated and it took long time.

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How do you find Iraq, pleasant ?

I’m visiting the north part of Iraq which is called the Kurdish Region; it’s so green, risky and has many nice people. Flying to there is so difficult/annoying and in my first trip I was too scared, I thought that no one would like me but I found out that the majority are friendly. The worst thing in living there is that the electricity is not available all the time, and the best thing is that the weather is not hot.

Child hood flashes ?

I spent most of it in playing Basketball in Al-Yarmouk Club and traveling with my family. In College life I stopped playing basketball and I focused more in studying and working in different part time jobs (MTC, Event Management Companies, Marketing Agencies ..etc) to get as much experience i can get before graduation, and in the last year of graduation i was a teacher assistant for my favorites professors in Kuwait University, Dr. Sulaiman Al-Rafea.

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What inspired you to tap into who you are now ?

If you are asking about Project Management, I love it because it is the path of leaders and I always prefer being a leader than being a manager. Leaders are the success key for all organizations and in brief they have followers, vision, emotionally intelligent and they are people oriented, but Managers, follow plans and do tasks.
And if you are talking about business development and advertisement solutions, this is the best field to show how creative you are and to have new experience.

What differs you from the rest of the competition out there?

I always insure to provide something new, something eye catchy and you will always remember. And in any project or solution we provide we always take care of the details and treat each project as it’s our own.

Support ? family & friends ?

My family and friends are my best support for everything in my life except working in Iraq and spending long working hours, but my colleagues Ching Abraham, Eng. Ahmed Al-Neama and Haya Al-Neama are always there when it comes to work, taking risk, having guidance and inspiration.

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Where do you see yourself 5 years from now ?

Having my Phd, and expand more regionally in managing projects and providing advertisement solutions.

Throw something for p0ach readers!

Since day one you published your Blog and our friend HKR is talking about it but only from last Saturday I started to read your blog on a daily basis, and I’ve never thought that one day I will come and I spend time in reading a blog because I always thought blogs are a big waste of time but yours and some of the ones you recommend are very interesting and it changed that idea I thought about.
I really respect that every Saturday you publish a new interview and this Saturday you will publish mine, and I apologize for the delay that I caused you. It’s not that I’m careless but it’s because Friday is my only off day since I work and study 6 days a week.

My advice to the dear readers is to always expose yourself to new experiences and markets, never limit yourself and never say you can’t !!

Contact:

http://www.facebook.com/shaheens