My Career Stories
Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company
I was 22 when I landed my first official corporate job as a process technologist with the commissioning team of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company. Prior to this, the most important responsibilities I had taken on were being the Choir Head for catholic students, being president of the Drama Club at my secondary school, and being elected as the Social Secretary of the my University's chapter of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers. My determination to be outstanding in this role came as no surprise and I knew I had succeeded when I became the 1st female intern within the commissioning team that was allowed to carry out pre-start-up audits and inspect heat exchangers, mercury removal units, fractionating columns, gas flare and several other process equipment.
As an integral player in meeting project start-up dates, commissioning and start-up of new 4.1 million metric ton LNG trains for NLNG Plus project (US$2.2 billion project), I was recognized for proficiency throughout process engineering activities and compiled accurate inventory of all alarms, trip settings, and shut-off valves on LNG trains. I contributed to the commissioning lessons-learnt database, reviewed and verified design envelopes, audit reports, interpreted process diagrams, and validated design specifications.
Supervising the main project contractors, TSKJ joint venture (Technip, Snamprogetti, KBR and JGC) during the commissioning phase of the NLNG trains 4 and 5 whilst sharing status updates and sign-offs with internal and external teams led to my gaining skills such as Stakeholder Management, Project Management, Process Engineering and Process Design.
Smiths Medical
My experience at NLNG further deepened my interest in energy and processes and on the completion of my Masters' degree at the University of Warwick in 2007, I was hired by Smiths' Medical in Kent as a Product Range Development Engineer. In this role, I assessed product design and ensured design conformed to specifications on Purchasing Reference Sheets. I verified biological safety of medical products and issued biological safety clearances, formulated test protocols and procedures, and conducted testing on equipment and products prior to bulk manufacture and distribution.
This role was a temporary cover for the project manager and I thoroughly enjoyed honing my project management skills whilst acquiring new skills in product development, procurement management, and partnership management within the medical manufacturing industry.
Oando PLC
Once my temporary contract at Smiths Medical expired, I returned to Nigeria to work for one of the largest indigenous integrated Oil and Gas companies in Africa.
I was initially hired as a business development executive by one of their subsidiaries, Oando Energy Services (OES). In this role, I sourced drilling contracts and Requests for Quotations (RFQs) from web portals, daily newspapers and through partnerships. I prepared the tenders, providing technical details and otherwise, demonstrating how and why OES can meet the companies’ needs.
I was then headhunted internally by the Chief Engineering and Technology Officer of the projects team, where I was assigned the role of the primary project engineer on several capital projects including a Liquefied Petroleum Gas facility construction, a refinery construction project and a pipeline procurement project. Now on the client side, I was also responsible for sending out RFQs for our projects and evaluating the bids/tenders that were sent to us. I was also a champion for introducing and training the rest of the organisation on a new project management process that was to be introduced company-wide as well as coordinate the uploading of all existing projects within the company into Oracle projects. I also trained up to 3 graduate trainees.
Key skills acquired include project planning, process definition, roadmap management, requirements gathering, Environmental impact assessments review, Front End Engineering Design review and I also prepared key project documents such as Communication plans, risk management plans, HR plan, quality management plans, procurement plan, change management plan and stakeholder management plan. In addition to these technical skills, I also honed my teamwork, corporate strategy, leadership and collaboration skills.
DeltaAfrik Engineering (Client: Exxonmobil)
At Deltaafrik, I was a project engineer working on capital projects for IOCs (international oil companies) such as ExxonMobil and Chevron. Key tasks included reviewing plans and drawings on brownfield (older) installations to ensure they seamlessly feed / connect into greenfield (newer) installations whilst minimising product loss through pipelines and equipment.
Key skills gained includes stakeholder management, project management, procurement management and minute taking. I left this role because I had just got married and had to move back to England to join my spouse.
Baker Hughes GE
When the opportunity came for me to intern at one of the world's most iconic companies in a role that took me out of my comfort zone, I was eager to share my versatility and willingness to learn under a world-class finance team.
I was responsible for providing some visibility to investors as to how the company arrives at it’s EBITDA figure. This included cross-discipline collaboration to obtain financial data from different subsidiaries / product companies and ensure such data was available in the company’s performance management software, hyperion.
Harrods Aviation
The Harrods Aviation (HA) project was a strategy consulting project initiated as part of London Business School’s LondonCAP module. My team engaged with Harrods Aviation Limited (HAL) team to explore potential opportunities for expansion into several key markets. The project involved face-to-face meetings and tours of the current operations at both Stansted Airport and Luton Airport in London.
I worked with a team of 5 and was responsible for the excel model that was used in carrying out quantitative data analysis of our research findings. This data-driven the model I came up with served as a project-defining starting point which evolved into an acquisition feasibility assessment. We compared business models for different regions to determine potential profitability of acquisitions along with other pre-defined criteria and analyzed financial performance to recommend future focus for additional revenue generation.
Other Affiliations (Google, Grosvenor Estates, Fighter Shots, Space Dynamix, Westfield, Lambeth)
In 2017, I was named one of Google's Top Black Talent thousands of UK students during my MBA at LBS. This programme is an award-winning diversity initiative to identify and support the UK’s best black students for a successful transition into the technology industry.