Koheila Molazemi

Product Line Director, Plant

As a young woman, Koheila Molazemi decided to study engineering over medicine despite her family’s traditional line of work. Having said that, she is not a typical engineer. That is unless most engineers love discussing philosophy at the dinner table and listening to a wide range of music, from jazz and blues to rock and heavy metal.

“I come from a family of doctors and surgeons,” says Koheila. Her family would have loved for her to continue the family line of work in medicine. “But I liked mathematics and logic, so I chose to become an engineer,” she says.

After high school, she managed to get accepted to the prestigious Sharif University of Technology, the country’s leading institution for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, located in Tehran. She majored in industrial engineering and during her career pivoted torisk management and health, safety and environment. Koheila is very passionate about her work and proud to have chosen a career where she can practice ‘medicine of the industry.’ She believes working in safety and HSE is about safeguarding life, not saving one life at a time, but by the hundreds or thousands.

UNITED NATIONS PROJECT

Working as an HSE consultant in Iran, she came to learn about a very interesting United Nations environmental project in a rural area north of Iran, and she ended up volunteering for the UN. The project was to build biogas units, using domestic

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.

sible for. It’s interesting to learn more about the Digital Solutions business areas, advisory products, how to scale them, and how drive the digital transformation of our products. I have formed a strong passion for the energy transition. We’re transforming our products to also build a strong position in the energy transition market. This brings the DNV purpose to life,” she says.

LIFELONG LEARNING

Changing roles and responsibilities is part of a lifelong learning process. “It’s important that we move back and forth in functions, so we don’t get too rusty in our understanding,” she says. “It’s healthy to get back to operations, sales, working closely with customers, et cetera – this gives me a lot of energy.”

At home she loves spending time with friends and family. Her husband is an Iranian writer and translator. “We come from two different worlds,” she says. “He comes from the world of philosophy and history.” They are both avid readers, and have discussions about wide-ranging topics in daily life. The most recent book she’s been reading is Michael Foley’s “The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard to be Happy.”

WORLD OF MUSIC

How does she attain happiness in the age of absurdity? “I have a big interest in books, travelling and photography, but most of all in music. I listen to a lot of jazz, blues and rock music, including heavy metal. We have enjoyed going to fantastic concerts, like Iron Maiden, Joe Satriani, Metallica, and others during our time in Abu Dhabi and Oslo. I was at a Megadeath concert three years ago, and it was just fantastic to see those bands live. I grew up with their music back home!”

She is perhaps not a typical heavy metal fan, either. She practices yoga several times a week. “My goal is to stand on my head in a year. Standing on my head, I can see our almost-upside-down world normally,” she says philosophically.

She loves living in Norway. In fact, there are many aspects of Norwegian culture that she values as closer to her own way of being. “I love Norway fascinating nature and learning about amazing “cabin life”. There are many fundamental principles here in Norway which are significantly important to me, like trust, equality and transparency,” she says. •

Koheila likes listening to a wide range of music, from jazz and blues to rock and heavy metal. This picture is from a Iron Maiden concert.