Sunday, June 11, 2017 | The Sunday Times
Insight
InGoodCompany
Sonrise in
Meinhardt
Group CEO of engineering firm envisions new era
of construction after joining his fathers business
Ravi Velloor
Associate Editor
Even a brick wants to be
something, the famed American
architect Louis Kahn once said.
If you think of Brick, you say to
Brick, What do you want, Brick?
And Brick says to you, I like an
Arch. And if you say to Brick, Look,
arches are expensive, and I can use
a concrete lintel over you. What do
you think of that, Brick? Brick says,
I like an Arch. And its important,
you see, that you honour the
material that you use. You can only
do it if you honour the brick and
glorify the brick instead of
short-changing it.
It is Mr Omar Shahzads job to
ensure that while honouring the
brick and the aesthetics that
architects divine around it, each of
the projects for which bricks are
brought in by the millions is
executed within budget, on time,
and will last in perpetuity.
Mr Shahzad is group chief
executive officer of Meinhardt
Group, one of the worlds largest
project engineering companies.
Fast facts in Australia in 1955 and set up its
first overseas office in Singapore
ABOUT MEINHARDT in 1973, where it is currently head-
Meinhardt Group is a leading engi- quartered.
neering consulting firm specialis- It has over 4,400 consultants in
ing in civil and infrastructure, ur- more than 40 offices across the
ban development and project man- world, with a special focus on Asia,
agement. The company originated the Middle East and Africa. Its
With contracts around the world
worth US$20 billion (S$27.7 billion)
annually, the 39-year-old is
involved end-to-end with dozens of
buildings and facilities that people
will routinely enter without a care,
much like chefs who toil lovingly
over a dish only to watch quietly as
a diner wolfs it down without so
much as a downward glance.
Take the building of Singapores
One Raffles Quay, for instance,
which Meinhardt had taken over
from another consultant. Built
over a live MRT tunnel and deep
tunnel sewerage systems in an
area where the clay tends to be
soft, it was one of the most
complicated structures the firm
handled, especially with the tough
safety guidelines, including on
vibration, imposed by the Building
and Construction Authority.
Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) had
made it aesthetically beautiful,
says Mr Shahzad, referring to the
American architectural firm that
designed the 1.3 million sq ft twin
tower facility, purpose-built for the
financial industry. We came up
with the idea of making it
perpendicular to the MRT and
shifting the orientation of the
building to get a better view. We
spent a lot strengthening the
foundations and convinced KPF to
put in some transfer structures on airport and the King Abdullah
the third and fourth levels that were
not part of the original design. By
doing all this, we saved $25 million
on structural issues alone.
Going by his training, Mr Shahzad
ought to have been inside the
building looking out than outside
looking in. Educated at Warwick
School in England and with an
economics degree from Tufts
University in the United States, the
Singaporean began his career as a
management trainee with Citibank
during the dot.com bust, serving as
a credit analyst. He subsequently
joined Lehman Brothers to get a
feel of the investment banking
projects range from airports to of-
fice buildings, malls and hotels.
Iconic projects it was involved in
include Singapores Marina Bay Fi-
nancial Centre, Gardens by the
Bay, KL Sentral, The River in
Bangkok, Bank of China building
in Hong Kong, and the Dubai Mall.
business, enduring the long hours
that come with that trade.
Four years later, the family called.
His father, Dr Shahzad Nasim, was
involved in buying out Meinhardt,
the company he had helped build,
and needed his only son by his side.
My job was to arrange the
funding and we didnt have a lot of
numbers. A lot of work went in and
the management buyout went
through. Once that was done, I was
in two minds stay in Meinhardt or
return to Lehman. My parents said
stay, and I did, says Mr Shahzad.
Its not easy entering your fathers
business as an earmarked successor
and heir. Grizzled veterans inside
and outside of the business eye you
with scepticism, and measure your
every step against the 40-year track
record of the parent. The tall and
courtly Dr Nasim, who is well
respected in the industry and has a
solid engineering background
including a masters degree from
the National University of Singapore
was not an easy act to follow.
Starting in finance, Mr Shahzad
was soon given charge of the
Middle East operations, where in
the face of an economic bust, a key
question was whether to cut
exposure to the market or stay. He
says he saw it as a challenge. Rather
than cut losses and flee, he trusted
in Dubais long-term potential and,
using the city as a base, expanded
the business into Qatar and Saudi
Arabia. More recently, Meinhardt
has acquired businesses in Africa.
We now have a proper Middle
East-Africa business on the back of
organic expansion, he says. That
was my main contribution at the
time and it gave my colleagues
comfort that I was more than my
fathers son or a mere number
cruncher. Now my clients around
the world demand my presence at
project meetings.
The company has placed 400
staff in the Middle East region,
which, at one time, contributed a
fifth of its new business earned.
Iconic projects completed include
Dubai Mall, a 12 million sq ft facility
completed in 2009 that draws as
many visitors annually as
passengers using Changi Airport.
Current projects on its books
include the expansion of Doha
against the buildings
Financial District in Riyadh.
Mr Shahzad says when he started
going to the Middle East, hed been
told that high-level personal
contacts were important. Besides,
historically, the region had turned
to American and European
consultants.
I profiled Meinhardt as a
Singapore company, says Mr
Shahzad. And I took a stand that
we will go to clients on the basis of
being the best in the business.
Aside from the Singapore brand
image, it helped that only Asia had
recently executed the scale of
projects being undertaken.
The privately-owned company
has annual billings of US$20 bil-
lion (S$27.7 billion). It does not dis-
close profits.
ABOUT SHAHZAD
Omar Shahzad, 39, is group CEO of
Meinhardt Group. Raised in Singa-
That, and one more thing. When
Gulf clients called Western
consultants on a weekend, they
found their calls were often not
answered. On the other hand, they
found the Meinhardt executive
available at all times.
I still get calls on a Friday night
saying, Come, see us Sunday
morning, and I fly down, he says,
explaining his frequent weekend
absences from Singapore. That
kind of thing really endears us to
them.
Historically, Meinhardts work
has leaned towards constructing
buildings. Mr Shahzad says he wants
to balance that with a new focus on
infrastructure projects, seeing that
in the decade ahead, Asia is going to
witness unprecedented
infrastructure expansion.
We are doing incredibly well in
Asia ex-Japan, he says. Now, I am
focused on the Asean region,
generally, and very bullish on
South Asia, particularly India.
Meinhardt was involved in the
modernisation of Mumbai and
Delhi airports and sees a steady
pipeline of projects from India,
which is in the middle of an aviation
boom with air traffic rising at about
15 per cent to 20 per cent annually.
Besides, some two dozen cities are
constructing metro rail systems.
What is the future of the
construction business? Dubai
already shows off its first 3D
printed building.
Mr Shahzad speaks of a
new era of hybrid
technologies, precast
composite steels,
prefinished-prefabricated
material and modular
construction. Thats for
materials. On the labour
side of the equation the
future is in robotics
machines doing
construction work, and
external facades being
polished by robotic
capsules that do not brush
management buyout. Would he
skin. Drones are getting
commonplace for survey
purposes.
pore, he went to secondary school
in Warwick, UK, and later, Tufts
University, US, where he earned a
bachelors degree in economics.
He started his career as a man-
agement trainee with Citibank be-
fore moving to the investment
banking division of Lehman Broth-
| B7
Mr Shahzad speaks of a new era
of hybrid technologies, precast
Mr Omar
Shahzad, group
composite steels,
chief executive
prefinished-prefabricated officer of
material and modular Meinhardt Group,
construction. Thats for materials. says he wants to
On the labour side of the equation, balance the
the future is in robotics machines companys work
doing construction work, and in constructing
external facades being polished by buildings with a
robotic capsules that do not brush new focus on
against the buildings skin. infrastructure
Drones are getting commonplace projects, seeing
for survey purposes. that Asia will
There have also been vast witness
developments in modelling where unprecedented
you change one condition and infrastructure
other conditions adjust expansion in the
immediately. This simplifies decade ahead.
things, cuts down project time and ST PHOTO:
reduces chances of human error. NG SOR LUAN
You have to be at the forefront of
these technological innovations,
and we are. People expect that from
a Singapore-based company, says
Mr Shahzad, whose one grouse is
that competition has halved
consultants fees from the 1 per cent
it used to be.
Its a complaint you also hear
from architects in Singapore. The
city state has shown it can put up
world-class buildings but when
will it have architects matching the
reputation of Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill, or the legendary
Chinese-American I.M. Pei, who
recently turned 100?
Mr Shahzad points to companies
such as Woha and DP Architects,
saying they are increasingly
gaining a good name globally. At
the same time, it also cannot be
denied that Western firms have
broader experience and cities like
London and New York are a fount
of talent, passion and creativity,
essential ingredients in the trade.
We are looking for engineers all
the time and we bring them in
regardless of whether or not we
have work for them immediately,
he says.
Singapore is one of the better
places to find talent. There is
growing awareness that you can
have a good career path in
engineering and others, such as
banking, come with their own
risks. But we need to do more to
spread awareness.
He came into the firm to help in a
now use his financial skills to take
the company public? Meinhardt
has talked about a share sale before.
We are looking to list in another
three or four years after building
the company some more, he says.
Ideally, I would like to do it in
Singapore but I am also conscious
that we do not have too many
engineering companies listed here
and while that has its positives, it
also makes it difficult (for
investors) to benchmark
Meinhardt against other
companies.
velloor@sph.com.sg
ers in 2005. Four years later, he
took a sabbatical from Lehman to
help his father, Dr S. Nasim, lead a
management buyout of Meinhardt
from its Australian owners.
Married to a homemaker, he is
the father of boys aged eight and
six, and a three-year-old girl.