New Middle East Branch Council Member

We are pleased to welcome on board our newest Middle East Council Member:

Catherine Workman, Partner at Pinsent Masons

We asked Catherine a few questions to get to know her a bit better:

1. If you could personally change or influence one thing within infrastructure and/or energy, what would it be?  

Mindset.  After 30 years in the industry, I am still disappointed with the approach of “we are doing it that way because we have always done it that way”.  The world, people and infrastructure and energy needs are constantly changing and so should the solutions and delivery models and therefore we should always challenge and ask ourselves “why?” We have a responsibility to change too – there is a great saying “If you don’t like change you will like irrelevance even less”. I definitely subscribe to that mindset.

2. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself at the start of your career? 

Don’t underestimate the value of experience. That is the differentiator. In professional services, intellect is a given and I have no doubt that those younger than me are more clever than me, but how you use that intellect is what makes the difference. Therefore, I would have advised myself to experience as much as possible and take every opportunity to broaden your practice so you can apply that experience at a later date. The other one is to trust your gut feeling. If something does not feel right – it probably isn’t. So many times, I have had that feeling and ignored it and it has come back to roost at a later date. I don’t ignore it anymore!

3. What do you hope to bring to this Council? 

I would like to bring diversity of thinking to the Middle East Council as a female leader within this industry, and I personally hope to add to that range of thinking and decision making. In addition, I would like to influence the development of more of a focus on Social Infrastructure. Over a number of decades, the predominant focus in the Middle East has been on power. That is turning and I would like to use my experience in these markets to assist and support our members to respond to the opportunities as the market continues to develop in the region.