Samer Abdul Samad joined Nesma & Partners Contracting in 1994, as a site engineer after graduating from New York University with a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 1992, following his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the same university in 1990.
Over the past 30 years, Samer has steadily advanced in his career. In his previous roles at Nesma & Partners, Engineer Samer was an indispensable member of operations and project management, overseeing all construction and infrastructure projects in the company, contributing to its growth, and achieving its goals. Due to his dedication and ambitious spirit, he was promoted to Vice President of Public Works in 2016. In 2020, he was appointed Vice President and Chief Operating Officer before being named the company’s President and CEO in 2021.
Since becoming President and CEO, Samer has started several measures to strengthen Nesma & Partners’ position as the Kingdom’s premier contracting company. Samer unveiled an ambitious strategy and vision for Nesma & Partners in early 2021, building on the business’s strong 43-year history as a prominent Saudi company.
Samer aims to enhance the company’s engineering, procurement, and construction capabilities to enable it to secure, organise, and efficiently manage more large-scale projects, contributing to the company’s sustainable growth, increasing local content, and achieving Vision 2030. Over the past year, Engineer Samer has strengthened our commitment to localisation through multiple partnerships with the Saudi Local Content and Government Procurement Authority. These strategic partnerships have enabled us to enhance our localisation efforts and contribute effectively to the development of the Saudi economy. Additionally, their local content percentage increased from 39.78% in 2022 to 43.28% in 2023, and 97.49% of major material requests were sourced from local suppliers.
Nesma & Partners also received the Excellence Award for achieving the highest overall performance in the IKTVA program in 2023 within the construction sector, thanks to Samer’s commitment to localising the supply chain and investing in developing young Saudis and local suppliers. Over the past year, they have signed several Memorandums of Understanding to reaffirm our strategic partnership with renowned organisations such as the Saudi Contractors Authority, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Columbia University, the Saudi Social Development Bank, the Gulf Board of Directors Institute, and others.
Under his leadership, more than 24,000 Saudis were trained last year through our internal training initiatives, whether at the Nesma Training Institute or through various other programs such as “Excellerate,” academic sponsorships, and other training and development programs that provide young Saudis with skills and opportunities for personal and professional growth. We also became part of the “Wa’ad” initiative, the national training initiative by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. We exceeded our annual “Wa’ad” target by more than 100% in 2023 by training over 21,000 employees. These efforts, along with our mentoring program and the establishment of our first Youth Council, “YouthRE,” played a crucial role in nurturing emerging talents within the organisation.
Committed to positively impacting society, Samer has continued to ensure that Nesma & Partners enters into various sponsorship and partnership agreements with prominent social impact organizations to support charitable initiatives targeting Saudi youth, people with disabilities, and families in need. These partnerships include ongoing and long-term collaborations with charitable entities such as Sawaeed for empowering persons with disabilities, the Efaa Charity Association, the Qaderoon Business Disability Network, and the Saudi Food Bank Association Et’aam. A notable partnership is the ongoing strategic collaboration with the Tarmeem Association, which has renovated nearly 140 homes over five years, supporting the most in-need families in the community.
Thanks to his focus on sustainability and pursuit of quality, Nesma & Partners was awarded an 81 on the “Achilles” rating scale. We also ranked third on the list of the Best Place to Work by the Great Place to Work® Middle East, in addition to being re-certified with the Golden Accreditation from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. Nesma & Partners also ranked first on the list of the top 30 contractors in the Construction Week Middle East magazine for two consecutive years in 2022 and 2023. This recognition builds on Nesma & Partners being selected as one of four companies in which the Public Investment Fund decided to make significant investments last year.
Over the past years, Samer has demonstrated his exceptional leadership ability by securing numerous large-scale projects such as the Red Sea Airport, Riyadh Avenues, and various energy projects for different clients from government agencies and private companies such as Red Sea Global, NEOM, Shomoul, Diriyah Gate, and Aramco in different regions of the Kingdom such as Riyadh, NEOM, AlUla, and the Eastern Province. Many projects were also successfully delivered last year, such as the Al-Hijr Hotel in AlUla, the Red Sea Airport, the Trojena Camp in NEOM, the Samhan Car Park in Diriyah, and the Southern Ghawar and Marjan projects for Aramco, in addition to completing 110 work orders under Aramco’s Onshore Capability Management Program. Additionally, they were awarded several major projects such as the King Salman Park project, the water removal project at The Line, the Sindalah Buildings Complex 1 and 2, the 5K and 10K construction villages in NEOM, and the Aramco main gas packages 10 and 14, further expanding the project portfolio and strengthening the collaborative relationships with clients.
Nesma & Partners revealed earlier this year that it has acquired Kent, the world’s leading energy engineering firm. This achievement strengthens their global reach and allows them to better serve their clients.