Who’s Who: Ghassan Mirdad, CEO of Arabian Drilling

Ghassan Mirdad
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Updated 27 August 2023
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Who’s Who: Ghassan Mirdad, CEO of Arabian Drilling

As the CEO of Arabian Drilling, Ghassan Mirdad oversees the company’s strategic direction and growth to ensure value-driven operations for its stakeholders and investors.  
His career is rooted in the upstream oilfield services sector, spanning 26 years. For 24 of those years, he held pivotal leadership roles at Schlumberger in key countries, from Malaysia in the East to Bolivia and Brazil in the West.  
He has global expertise in the oil and gas oilfield services industry, partnerships and investments, mergers and acquisitions as well as business operations and human resources. Concluding his tenure at Schlumberger, Mirdad served as the president of the eastern Middle East region, where he led operations covering the UAE, Oman, Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen. Mirdad’s passion for training and development steered him to leading Schlumberger’s global training and development function, where he was responsible for upskilling over 100,000 employees worldwide.  
Outside of the upstream oilfield service sector, Mirdad is the founder and non-executive director at AFKAR Ventures, an energy tech firm focused on leveraging technology for the Middle East and North Africa region’s energy sector. Prior to joining Arabian Drilling, he was the CEO of Katerra, Saudi Arabia, a Silicon Valley high-tech construction company. 
As an advocate for talent development, his involvement extends to esteemed educational advisory boards. He served on the boards of the Abu Dhabi University’s College of Business, Saudi Petroleum Services Polytechnic and the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Saudi chapter. Currently, he sits on the board of trustees at the Saudi Arabian Drilling Academy.  
A Sloan Fellow, Mirdad holds a master’s degree in leadership and strategy from London Business School.  He also has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

 


Kingdom, UNDP sign deal to boost road sector

Updated 13 sec ago
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Kingdom, UNDP sign deal to boost road sector

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Roads General Authority signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN Development Programme to enhance cooperation and expand international partnerships in the roads sector.

The agreement supports the authority’s efforts to improve the efficiency of the sector and strengthen its presence in specialized international forums, in line with the roads sector program objectives.

The deal focuses on exchanging expertise across multiple areas and developing scientific studies and research according to international best practices, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday.

Through the collaboration, the authority will align local standards with global expertise while fostering partnerships that drive innovation, improve safety and enhance the quality of the Kingdom’s road network.

The authority highlighted its commitment to implementing key projects and initiatives to develop the network, including reducing road fatalities to fewer than five per 100,000 people, achieving a global ranking of sixth in the Road Quality Index by 2030 and ensuring the road network meets traffic safety standards set by the International Road Assessment Programme.