Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Award-Winning Chartered Professional Engineer (CEng, FIRSE) | Global Asset Management, Infrastructure Operations & Maintenance Leader and former French Foreign Legionnaire. I am an international rail, maritime and asset management executive based in the Middle East with over 30 years of leadership experience spanning high-speed rail, metro systems, Eurotunnel, shipyard infrastructure, and global transport operations. I have significant experience of working in the Middle East. I have supported Groupe ONCF (Morocco) and Crossrail International (UK) in advancing high-speed rail asset management and PMO advisory in Morocco. Most recently, I served as Transit System Maintenance Director seconded to Hitachi Rail – Riyadh Metro (Saudi Arabia), leading the successful opening of Orange Line 3 for passenger operations and directing asset management within the FLOW consortium (Hitachi–Alstom–Leonardo). I have also contributed to major international tenders, including: California High Speed Rail (USA) Ontario Line, Toronto (Canada) – secured award with the Connect6ix consortium 🔹 Previous Executive Leadership Directed infrastructure maintenance & asset management for Dubai Metro Directed asset management and infrastructure maintenance for High Speed 1 (UK) and High Speed 2 (UK). Oversaw Technical & HSQE leadership for Drydocks World shipyards in Dubai, Singapore & Indonesia. Early military career in the French Foreign Legion, awarded the Médaille Militaire & Croix de Guerre TOE. 🌍 Global Experience Extensive leadership across Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with expertise in: Strategic & Physical Asset Management (ISO 55000). HSQE, Risk & Crisis Management (ISO 31000). Operations & Maintenance of rail, ports, and maritime infrastructure PPP frameworks, safety leadership, and zero-harm cultures. ⚡ What Drives Me I am passionate about building high-performing teams, driving business growth and performance, embedding whole-life asset management practices, and fostering a strong Zero Harm culture in occupational health, safety, environment, and quality. 💬 Languages: Fluent in English & French | Conversational Arabic & Bahasa 🌐 Beyond Work: Charity supporter, including completing the Three Peaks by Rail for Railway Children.
Accountable for the operation and maintenance of Riyadh Metro.
https://contraxco.com/ Based in the Middle East, I supported numerous global clients in high-speed rail, metro, ports, and infrastructure operations and maintenance by delivering value for money solutions and expert guidance especially within PPP programmes. I develop their PMO, asset management, whole life asset strategies, HSQE, engineering, operations, and maintenance capabilities, while also expanding Contrax International's global PPP business portfolio. Acted as the interim Maintenance Director for Hitachi STS on Line 3 of the Riyadh Metro in Saudi Arabia.
I led the development of both the High Speed Two Ltd (HS2) strategic asset management regime and the infrastructure maintenance strategy of the future HS2 Infrastructure Manager. My role led in developing the HS2 asset management concepts in compliance to ISO:55000 series, strategies, standards and processes that ensured the end state HS2 railway met its commercial and whole life value for money objectives as well as achieving world class levels of customer experience, safety, performance, availability, maintainability, and reliability.
I had overall responsibility for the leadership & development of the Dubai Metro asset management, engineering & maintenance strategies as well as the tactical leadership in the HSQE, planning, development, and management of all day to day maintenance activities - both fixed - track, signalling, MEPS and rolling stock, as established to deliver the Serco Dubai Metro operations & maintenance services contract to the Dubai Government. My role includes achievement of contractual and internal targets for OHSE, maintenance performance, service reliability, supervision of contractors, environmental management, human resource management, financial targets, legal and stakeholder management.
As executive director I was responsible for leading the global business technical asset management, risk, health, safety, environmental and quality (HSEQ) compliance as well as emergency response management on behalf of Drydocks World Dubai, the Middle East's largest shipyard with 13,000+ multi national employees in Dubai, Singapore and Batam, Indonesia. We were awarded both the British Safety Council Sword of Honour and the Middle East Oil & Gas, Health and Safety Award in 2013 as well as American Petroleum Institute (API) Spec Q1 certification for quality of services to the offshore oil & gas sectors. I also served as a member of the Singapore, Ministry of Manpower MOM, Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council's Marine Industries Committee.