Mohamed Defrawi is Country Chairman for Shell in Abu Dhabi and Managing Director of Shell Abu Dhabi. Born and brought up in Egypt and educated in Egypt and the USA, he has spent nearly 30 years of his working life in the Americas.
He joined Shell Chemicals in Houston in 1977, and did not return to the Middle East, to Abu Dhabi, until 1998, when he took up his current position.
"Culturally for me, as I grew up in this area," he says, "the prospect of coming back to the Middle East was appealing.
I now feel very much at home, as do all my family, as Abu Dhabi and, indeed, the UAE is a very open and friendly society." He goes on to say that he would like to continue to be associated with Shell's business in the Middle East.
He talks to 'Shell in the Middle East' about his early days, his family, his career and his business objectives...
Q. Where were you born, brought up and educated?
I was born in a small village, Kafr El Defrawi, in the Nile Delta in Egypt, where my ancestors had lived for generations. My father was at that time a Member of the Egyptian Parliament.
There were no local schools and I was the eldest child in the family, so when I reached school age the family moved to Alexandria.
I went to Victoria College, one of Egypt's best-known schools, attended at the time by many students from the Gulf and other Middle Eastern countries.
From there, I went on to the University of Alexandria, where I studied Chemical Engineering and did reasonably well.
I then applied for places at various American universities to further my education and was offered a Research Assistantship at the University of Washington in Seattle.
At that time it was quite difficult to leave Egypt.
Education was free and after university you had to work for the Government to pay them back. I was working in the National Research Center in Cairo and they wouldn't give me a leave of absence.
The only alternative was to emigrate, so I applied to emigrate to Brazil as it only took two months to get approval.
I got my papers and left Egypt, but I never went to Brazil. Instead, I went straight to Seattle. Before I left Egypt, I got engaged to Mona, who is my wife today and who was studying English Literature at the University of Alexandria.
Because of the complications of returning to Egypt and, most importantly, because I did not have enough money at the time, I married Mona through a proxy wedding whilst I was in Seattle and Mona was in Alexandria.
My father stood in for me and it was a bit strange, but I trusted him to do the right thing!
Mona joined me in Seattle a year and a half later and we spent four fantastic years together in Seattle, which is a gorgeous city with beautiful lakes and mountains and friendly people, very much in harmony with nature.
On my first day in Seattle I was fortunate enough to be met by a host family, appointed to look after me during my stay.
Wally and Ellen Andersen were wonderful people of Swedish extraction who guided me through the intricacies of settling in, and when Mona finally came to Seattle they held a second wedding for us. We've remained close and still visit them to this day.
Q. What did you do when you left the University of Washington?
I left with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and thought I wanted to be a University Professor. I joined the Faculty of Columbia University in New York City, but that didn't last very long, despite the fact that we loved New York.
I then joined Dupont as a Research Engineer in Wilmington Delaware.
I stayed for one and a half years before moving to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1974, where we bought our first house and had our first son, Shareef. I was then sent to the Dupont plant in Niagara Falls.
We moved into our new house in a suburb of Buffalo in January 1977, and I remember the weather was so bad that we were snowed in and didn't meet our neighbors until May.
It was the worst winter in a generation, and we couldn't handle that kind of weather. The bright spot that year was the birth of our second son, Tarek.
Q. When did you first start working with Shell?
On a trip to Houston, Texas, I decided to look for another job, in the oil business. This was in 1977 and these were good times for oil and petrochemical companies.
I sat in a hotel going through the 'Yellow Pages' and phoning the big companies. A Shell Oil manager came to interview me at the hotel and within a few months I was at Shell's West Hollow Research Center.
During 1977 to 1986, I worked between West Hollow and Shell's head office in Houston, carrying out a variety of jobs, including research management and corporate planning.
However, the most interesting job I had during that period was when I was part of the team which marketed products from Sadaf [Saudi Arabian Petrochemical Company]. This gave me the opportunity to travel more and to develop my commercial skills.
During this time I also went to Venezuela and met the General Manager of Shell Venezuela, who was at that time Joaqin Moreno, and who is now back in Venezuela as Shell's Head of Oil Products in the Southern Zone.
He offered me the job of Petrochemical Manager for Shell in Venezuela and I spent four years there, based in Caracas.
The country is beautiful, the people are lovely and they enjoy every minute of life. The business side was also very stimulating.
One of the plusses was that the whole family learned Spanish, which gave us a tremendous insight into the people and culture.
In fact, for me it was essential to speak Spanish as you could not function in Venezuela without it. They were happy days and my third son, Yousef, was born there and given a Venezuelan passport.
Following Venezuela, I went back to the States and back to Houston, which was almost like coming home for us as I had spent nine years there already and was now destined to spend the next nine years there too.
During this time I was a Business Manager for Shell Chemicals in the USA. When I finally came to leave the States, I had spent nearly 30 years of my working life in the Americas.
Q. How did the move to the Middle East come about?
In 1998, Harry Roels, who is today a Managing Director of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies' Committee of Managing Directors, was then in charge of the Middle East for the Exploration and Production [E&P] business.
He was looking out for people with Arab origins to work in the field and tasked his Human Resources people with the job of locating suitable candidates.
Garmt Louw of EP Human Resources got the lead from Lee Patterson, who is his counterpart in Chemicals and who knew me well from his time in Houston.
One day I received on my computer in Houston an e-mail asking me if I would be interested in working in the Middle East.
The job offered was Country Chairman for Abu Dhabi and Managing Director of what was then Shell Gas Abu Dhabi. For me, this was a completely new direction.
It was to be my first time working out of the Americas, my first job in the Middle East and my first role with E&P.
After some soul searching I said yes and I am now very happy that I made that decision.
Culturally for me, as I grew up in this area, the prospect of coming back to the Middle East was appealing and I now feel very much at home, as do all my family, as Abu Dhabi and, indeed, the UAE is a very open and friendly society.
Q. Can you outline the objectives of your role with Shell in Abu Dhabi?
I have been here for nearly three years and have seen Shell Gas Abu Dhabi through a change of name to become Shell Abu Dhabi to reflect the wider activities of Shell in the Emirate.
Shell is currently participating in studies in the E&P sector with ADNOC [Abu Dhabi National Oil Company].
More Shell people are now involved in these studies, which we hope one day in the not too distant future will develop from studies into projects.
These projects would enable Shell to work more closely with the Government of Abu Dhabi and with ADNOC.
Shell are already shareholders with ADNOC in ADCO [Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations], with a 9.5 per cent shareholding, and in GASCO [Abu Dhabi Gas Industries], with a 15 per cent shareholding.
Shell's involvement in Abu Dhabi is less than that of some of the other oil majors.
However, we feel that we can offer a lot more to Abu Dhabi in terms of technology, training, the development of people and the sharing of best practices, which Shell has developed through its extensive experience of operating in over 120 countries worldwide.
Shell is the largest private operator of oil and gas ventures in the world.
The company believes that it is important to invest in technology to improve its competitive edge and to differentiate it from the competition.
Better technology, used properly, is better for business and Shell is happy to share its technology with its partners.
I also believe that Shell's commitment to sustainable development, not only in public statements, but also in deeds that are verified by third parties, is a big plus for our partners who share the same values.
Q. What of your future?
I expect to remain in Abu Dhabi for a year or two, after which I would like to continue be associated with Shell's businesses in the Middle East.
Source: Shell in the Middle East.com
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
