I KOHEILA MOLAZEMI I
waste to generate energy. The villagers had been cutting down forest areas to burn for their energy supply. Koheila would spend time commuting on the five-hour drive back and forth from Tehran during her weekends as the UN project manager. “We didn’t just parachute in and out of those villages. We helped them learn how to build and maintain the units themselves. It took almost five years to complete,” she says. In total, biogas units were built in 18 villages in that environmentally sensitive area. “This project was very close to my heart and helped to shape what I stand for in life,” she says. “I’m still in contact with the people we built these units for.” Working for the UN led to opportunities for new projects with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Koheila was involved in a large environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) project with DNV for INPEX for a large field development project in Iran. In late 2004 she received an offer to join DNV Abu Dhabi, where she continued working as an HSE consultant within the oil and gas industry. CONSULTING SERVICES FOR OIL AND GAS Koheila now has more than two decades of experience in consulting services in the oil and gas industry, working for major international and national companies. Her areas of work have been risk management, technical safety, asset risk management and enterprise risk management, including project management and carrying out environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) studies and health, safety and environmental impact assessment (HSEIA) studies.
Before becoming Product Line Director in the Digital Solutions business area, she was Technology and Innovation Director in BA Oil and Gas, involved in global governance, maintenance and digital transformation of services, including advisory and assurance services One perspective she has is working as a woman in the oil and gas industry in the Middle East. Over the years that she worked in Abu Dhabi, she has gone through an interesting journey of being a sole woman in the customer meetings to a more balanced and diversified working environment. “During my time in ME, I tried to provide equal opportunities, hire and empower more female employees,” she says. “It’s important not to give up and to be part of a change of the mindset.” For the last six years, Koheila has been living and working in Norway. “After ten years of living and working in the Middle East, Norway has brought me a whole range of new and very rich experiences, both workwise and personally,” she says. “I have a funny story,” she says. “It was the first Christmas Eve that we stayed in Norway, in 2017. We went out for a nice dinner and soon noticed we were the only ones on the E18 motorway driving to Aker Brygge. We realized that everything is closed here on Christmas Eve, unlike UAE. We ended up having burgers in a gas station at Fornebu!” Why has she taken on the new role as Product Line Manager for the Plant ecosystem? “That’s an interesting question,” she says. “I’ve been working with oil and gas for over 20 years. We’ve been using a lot of the products that I’m now respon-
During my time in ME, I tried to provide equal opportunities, hire and empower more female employees. It’s important not to give up and to be part of a change of the mindset. While working in the UN as a project manager, Koheila’s team helped the people learn how to build and maintain the biogas units themselves.
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