Basil Ali
Alqahtani

I finished my degree the same year Saudi Arabia opened one of its most ambitious construction sites to a new generation of engineers — and I wanted to be inside it, not reading about it later. That’s the real reason behind stacking a PMP® before my first full-time role, an NVQ alongside live site work, and a McKinsey program on top of both: I’d rather over-prepare for a career built at the center of something than arrive qualified for something that’s already finished.

The PMP came first — passed on the first attempt, rated “Above Target” overall and in the People domain, before I’d earned a full-time paycheck. Then I went looking for the hardest place to prove it was more than a certificate.

That place is the Qiddiya Formula 1 Circuit, one of Vision 2030’s flagship giga-projects, where I supervise live construction workfronts through PIF’s Azm national talent program — quality control, HSE compliance, and the daily discipline of keeping a national project on schedule. Before the site, it was substations: testing and commissioning HV transformers and circuit breakers at Saudi Electricity Company.

Between the two, I’ve learned engineering and leadership are the same skill: build the thing correctly, on time, and leave the system better than you found it.