Turnaround expert

Meet Omar Ahmed Qatan, the new CEO of Oman Oil Marketing Company, who believes innovation is the key to turn around corporate fortunes

Omar Ahmed Qatan has a clear formula when it comes to work ethic. “Be fast and quick to work; exert the torque on time as the world will rotate faster than you if you don’t,” he says. Oman Oil Marketing Company (OOMCO) couldn’t have found a better person to step into the shoes of Michael G Wilson (ex Managing Director of OOMCO) to lead the company. Though it’s still early days for him — he took charge this April only — he has already shown that he practices what he believes in. “Soon after I joined, we signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Yemen Petroleum to explore the development of a retail network there. In addition, I was in Southeast Asia recently to negotiate on a major project for the company. We are exploring more overseas markets quite aggressively. We expect to close some of these deals in the coming months,” Omar informs.

Talking about his background, he says, “Being born into a business-oriented family, business is deep rooted in my blood. Even as a child in Grade III, I used to participate in the family business.”

Omar graduated in civil engineering from California University in 1984. Thereafter, he went on to do his Master’s degree in public health from Leeds University (UK). He honed his professional skills by attending various training programmes and securing diplomas in projects and business management.

He started his career with Royal Oman Police (ROP) as a civil engineer. Recounting his early days, he says, “I started by supervising ROP projects which gave me excellent exposure to being a professional manager with the focus on time management and stress for action rather than theory. Besides, values such as strict discipline, target orientation and performance got strongly embedded in my mind as a young Omani engineer working in the force. I spent 11 fruitful years with ROP, whilst moving up to managerial rank.”

Rich Experience

With rich experience in supervision of projects executed by others behind him, Omar moved on to the other side of the table to execute projects himself as he joined Galfar Construction in 1996. “Starting as Senior Manager (Projects) dealing primarily with PDO projects, I moved on to head the branch in Yemen following which I was entrusted with the responsibility of executing a RO30 million project for the Salalah Sewerage and Conveyor System. My five years at Galfar Construction taught me how to do a quality job with optimal utilization of resources to generate maximum profit. This stint broadened my skills and knowledge base as I worked in a highly competitive market to meet the international standards and ensure the highest levels of health, safety and environment (HSE) practices,” Omar spells out.

His next assignment was with the industrial sector ending up with Gulf Stones Co. SAOG where he enhanced his reputation as a turnaround expert. According to him, the last few years at Gulf Stones were a unique experience. Those years added new dimensions to his professional understanding. “I drew up turnaround plans, appointed a new management team and conceptualized the new marketing strategy. All these efforts led to a complete transformation in the company’s fortunes. Within six months of my entry at the helm, the company posted a net profit after a gap of four years. When I left, the company was in a strong financial position with an excellent management team in place,” he recalls.

OOMCO Challenge

What made him join OOMCO? “I accepted the offer as it was a challenging opportunity in a different industry where I could contribute to the growth of the company and also sharpen my own skills.”

On his role as the CEO of the company, he says, “Simply put, my role as the CEO of OOMCO is to grow the company and the people. I am currently working closely with the senior management team to pave the way for taking the company to new growth standards, both organically and inorganically, and to excel in all we do.”
He regards the team led by him as the custodians of the shareholders’ money. “We are initiating work on various projects to grow the company, get optimal utilization of resources, and maximise profits while delivering quality service to our customers and community,” he adds.

Though he is still in the process of understanding the business and its intricacies, he has identified three challenging areas, which he must be prepared to manage in doing justice to his role as the CEO. “The first one is related to the continuity in supply of fuel products. We had recently seen restrictions being imposed on supply to all the marketing companies. This created a shortage in the Sultanate. Apart from restricting our ability to meet our customer’s requirement, this also led to higher operating costs. Hopefully, this is a thing of the past, with the government committing to sustain supplies to all marketing companies.

“Secondly, we are committed to the national initiative of Omanisation. We have set ourselves a target of 90 per cent in the coming years. This is a challenge as it will have to be implemented in a manner that does not upset our ambitious growth plans.
“Thirdly, aviation is another area of potential for us. We compete with regional airports and need to be competitive with them not only in terms of pricing but the overall offering also at the airport to grow the volumes at Seeb airport. We have been in dialogue with the concerned ministries/authorities to address this issue but a lot remains to be done on this front.”

The economy of Oman is on a roll and most of the companies are generating record turnovers and profits. In this situation, the performance of a CEO is under constant pressure with the expectations from the shareholders and consumers to perform. Omar recognizes this fact as he says, “I believe that we should not just ‘meet’ expectations (that is the bare minimum) but should strive to surpass them or as I like to say ‘delight’ our shareholders/consumers. For that, we constantly need to innovate by thinking of new ways of doing things that would result in the ‘delight’. I believe innovation which results in ‘delight’ should be appropriately recognized and rewarded.”

— Akshay Bhatnagar

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