PV Sunil in Chennai, India

PV Sunil is Area Manager for the Chennai Area in Bureau Veritas India.

"I started my career at Bureau Veritas 20 years ago and have been working in the company since then. I started as a surveyor and auditor and then became Head of the Industry activity in Chennai. My main domain of expertise is in inspection of critical equipments: I have performed inspections from simple raw material to some of the largest and critical pressure equipments made in the country. Also, I have gained experience in the inspection of pipe lines, from water pipe lines to largest Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) pipe line projects and from simple storage facilities to critical heavy Water projects.

 In 2006, I became Area Manager for the Chennai Area.
   

The Chennai area is an important business hub for Bureau Veritas in India as we have nearly 1,000 Certification clients and there is a good potential in the industry business. My role is to maintain the growth in Certification, to increase our growth in Industry and to develop business in Construction, Health, Safety & Environment as well as in International Trade. I am also responsible for geographical expansion by adding new offices while ensuring a good growth of existing offices. This involves visiting potential clients extensively as well as sourcing new business opportunities.
As a team manager, I spend time in building the team, motivating the team members and guiding them to achieve the organization’s objectives as well as their personal ones. And last but not least: as a team, Chennai area makes excellent contributions by recruiting, inducting and deputing surveyors to large projects in the country.
The main challenge in my present job is getting the right talents. Having the right kind of people is a key element in our performance; this is especially true in a fast growing market such as India and the Middle East. Retaining our talents and growing further in numbers is a challenge I have to face everyday and which I am learning to tackle.

Another challenge I have is achieving the targeted budget. This is common to most Bureau Veritas managers as it is our main performance assessment. Although there is a solid industrial growth in the country, the competition scenario calls for untiring efforts to reach our targets.

These are exciting challenges as I am confident of Bureau Veritas’ growth and I am proud to be a part of it. "

Tim Plowman in Saint Louis, United States

Tim is Director of Business Development for Bureau Veritas’ National Elevator Inspection Services.

"Before joining Bureau Veritas I worked for 19 years in the Elevator Industry in several world leading companies. My career included a variety of sales, application, management and marketing positions. I became Regional Vice President of Modernization Marketing for a renowned company in the elevator field.

Now, at Bureau Veritas, I am the Director of Business Development for Bureau Veritas’ National Elevator Inspection Services. My main responsibility in this role is to develop the Marketing and Business Development function for elevator inspections, witnessing of safety tests, and plan reviews. Concretely, this means continuing to grow the business and maintain our position as the largest elevator inspection company in the United States!

The main challenge of my job is learning the numerous variations each Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) has regarding elevator code compliance and adoption. This will be essential in developing quality relationships and solutions for municipalities, hospital organizations, retail groups, property management companies, etc. throughout the U.S."

Eva de la Cruz Lancha in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Eva de la Cruz Lancha is a building and facilities business manager at Bureau Veritas Abu Dhabi.

"Before joining Bureau Veritas I worked as a site manager for a construction company in Spain. I was responsible for the administrative, technical and financial aspects of projects, overseeing a number of employees and subcontractors. In October 2000, I joined Bureau Veritas in Spain as a site inspector and health and safety coordinator, taking on a managerial role alongside this. After two years I became building and facilities manager for Castilla la Mancha and Extremadura Profit center, working on hotel, power station and shopping mall construction projects.

My new role is building and facilities business and development manager in Abu Dhabi. This involves dealing directly with clients to discuss planned constructions, managing my team and organizing projects, both financially and administratively. I also source potential business in the region.

I am currently involved in the "Tameer Towers" project. This is a Site and Supervision Inspection contract and it is a great challenge. Now is an exciting time for the construction industry in the Middle East, with many new developments and plenty of projects ahead".

Mohamed Tidjani in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Mohamed Tidjani is operations manager for scanner activities of Bureau Veritas in Ivory Coast.

"I started my career in 1989 in an information technology company, working for 10 years as a client service technician in their after sales support division. My responsibilities covered the Cap-Vert-Gambia-Mauritania-Mali zone. During my time there, I also had the opportunity to work in France for 6 months, at the Hotline service in Val de Fontenay. I then decided to reorient my career towards scanner activities. I joined a Trade Inspection company for 4 years, firstly working as an image auditor, then as manager of the South zone following a 6 month mission in Togo on their scanner site. In April 2005, I joined Bureau Veritas during the test phase of the CAB2000 scanner in Ivory Coast. This test period was the perfect opportunity for us to build our teams and fine-tune local scanner procedures.

Now at BIVAC Scan, Bureau Veritas’ scanner subsidiary in Ivory Coast,  I am in charge of supervising all scanner related activities, notably:
- Ensuring that we provide an efficient commercial service to our clients with respect to the contract;
- Ensuring that security procedures and standards (HSE) are fully respected;
- Ensuring that the scanner and the site’s facilities are always operational.
Among my functions, I am also Scanner Coordination Committee secretary.

There are two main challenges in my new job:
- The first one is to create new business related to the scanner activity, such as export inspection in addition to our import activity;
- The second one is to build a Scanner referential database (process, maintenance, etc.) from Abidjan accessible to the whole Group. The aim of this tool is to share good practices and to help other scanning facilities solve their problems in an easier and faster way."