Sometimes a friend can best recognise where your skills would be a good fit and set you off on a life changing career journey.

Khaled Mabrouk, Global Product Manager, Adaptive Execution, Aberdeen Scotland, joined ABB straight out of university in 2006, but it was a friend who suggested that Mabrouk might be good for ABB, and he was the one who actually submitted his CV to a local representative. 

“I was so happy to get the role as an automation engineer for ABB Egypt,” said Khaled. “After a six-month training period I started travelling extensively throughout Egypt on a wide variety of ABB projects. Within two years I had progressed to senior engineer, which is unusual as it normally takes 5-6 years, but I had learned so much from my first two years’ experience that it was a natural move.”

It was then that Mabrouk became aware of a challenging opportunity with ABB in the UK (Aberdeen) Office, which was looking for additional support for its growing portfolio of oil and gas customers. A desire to acquire more knowledge and even broader experience prompted Khaled to apply for the position. He was accepted and moved to Aberdeen in January 2009.  

“In Egypt I was mostly involved in onshore projects, but at the time in Aberdeen most of the action was offshore, which I found very interesting... and challenging,” Khaled said.

Khaled remained in that Aberdeen role for two years, but as the ABB oil and gas support business was also expanding in Norway and needed to add to its local pool of engineering talent, Khaled traded the Scottish Cairngorms for Norwegian fjords and relocated to the Stavanger office in 2011, where he remained for the next 20 months.  

Khaled said, “Norway is amazing, and I learned a lot, but I was offered a principal engineer position back in the UK, looking after the biggest offshore producing asset in the UK, which was too intriguing to pass up. I took the job and soon progressed from principal engineer on that project to delivery manager. What that means is that I now had responsibility for both the commercial and technical teams and by May of 2020 I was leading the UK Service Engineering team, looking after millions of pounds of business.”

Khaled is quick to add that all of this was accomplished with the full backing of ABB management, who offered him multiple opportunities and supported moves across three countries as he followed his instincts and developed his career path.  

“At ABB, if you want to do something and display the requisite skills for it, you will get the opportunity and any additional training you need to not only achieve it but prepare yourself for the next step in your career,” Khaled said.

“If you have the desire and potential within you, it will be noticed, encouraged and developed.”

Today, Khaled is a global product manager, looking after ABB’s product service portfolio. He is based in the UK; his manager is in the US and his team is in India.  Khaled draws on the experience from his diverse ABB career to date to continually review and improve ABB’s internal processes, ensuring their benefits accrue to ABB customers.

“Follow your passion. It’s gives you a lot of energy and is the momentum that drives your career, said Khaled. “ABB has enabled me to follow my passion and therefore I’ve been able to deliver results that are really satisfying.
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 “My friend in Egypt all those years ago was right. ABB and I are a perfect fit.”