Bapco Leadership - Senior Women Profiles

Almarzooq Acting Manager, Operational Excellence Department

Haifa Almarzooq is currently the Acting Manager for the Operational Excellent Department, within the Engineering Division. Haifa holds a Bachelor in Computer Science with Minor in Statistics, from Kuwait University, in which she graduated with Distinction, and a Masters in Business Administration with Finance Concentration at the New York Institute of Technology, where again she graduated with Distinction.

Haifa recalls her family encouraging her to consider a career in medicine. However, during her formative years, Haifa had developed a strong interest in computers, which led to the eventual selection of her degree course and then a career at Bapco.

On joining Bapco, Haifa gained experience on major projects such as new steam turbo generator control systems and the A/B pipeline. Haifa was promoted to a Senior Control Systems Engineer and then Superintendent Systems Support for the Process Control and Instrumentation Department. Haifa commented that she streamlined more than 15 major contracts for automation system suppliers during her time in this role.

In 2014 Haifa moved to Risk and Reliability where she led Risk Management and Centralized Reliability Engineering. Haifa managed a team of engineers and represented her department on committees including that for EHS and Crisis and Emergency Procedure (CERP).

Since 2019 Haifa has been the Acting Manager for the Operational Excellence Department where she manages a team of 30 professionals from a wide range of academic disciplines. Haifa has rolled out Lean Six Sigma projects, executed improvements to Bapco’s Operational Dashboard and led on Process Safety Management strategy. Haifa is also chairing the GDA Operational Excellence Committee.

During her career Haifa has always actively supported fellow women engineers. Haifa is proud to have been the member of the very first committee established by SCW to draft the Bahrain report on Convention of Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. In 2017 Haifa chaired the Bahraini Female Engineer Forum in support of SCW, which was organised by the then National Authority of Oil and Gas. Haifa has also participated the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and Leadership Excellence for Women Awards (LEWAS) 2018 and 2019. In 2021 Haifa spoke at the European Society for Quality Research (ESQR) conference, where Bapco was a recipient of an ESQR Quality Achievement Award (image opposite).

Haifa has managed to combine a successful career with raising three children. Haifa comments that her long career at Bapco is due to the many varied and interesting roles available to women throughout the company, which has allowed Haifa to pursue her passion in many technical and professional areas. Haifa observes that nowadays there is more support for women in Bapco and that there are more opportunities open to women compared to when she graduated, and reflects that it is an exciting time for women in this industry.