Firm foundation: Abdullah M Al Garawi

As President and CEO of Advanced Petrochemical Company, Abdullah M Al Garawi firmly believes that the three key pillars for any successful business are the talents, processes and leadership. He further stresses that running a petrochemical business requires
a different leadership style, especially when it comes to safety, as the company deals with highly flammable materials.

To develop any petrochemical business, there needs to be large investments – in the US$ billions – and just one safety incident during plant operations may have a catastrophic impact.

Thus, safety is extremely important, not only for the employees working in the plant, but also for the long-term sustainability of asset performance and quality. It is for this reason that creating a safety mindset among all employees is a prerequisite
for driving operational excellence throughout the organisation.

The 12 million safe man-hours achieved recently … is a true reflection of the safety culture that has been created.

The 12 million safe man-hours achieved recently by Advanced Petrochemical Company, in less than 10 years of operation, is a true reflection of the safety culture that has been created.

In the area of operational excellence, the plant availability improvement from 90 per cent to above 98% over the past six years reflects the significant enhancement in talents capability and process robustness.

Today, Advanced is considered as the benchmark in the industry for its performance excellence.

Abdullah highlights the importance of the company’s core values in creating a challenging work environment that provides equal opportunity to all employees to demonstrate their
capability in achieving excellence through a transparent team work environment, while pursuing continuous improvements.