ZIAD ALAHDAD
Former Director of Operations, and Lead Energy Specialist, World Bank
Summary CV
Ziad Alahdad has 40 years of work experience, the last 25 with the World Bank where prior to his retirement in 2006, he was Director of Operations. Before joining the World Bank, he worked in both the private and public sector. His private sector experience, in natural gas transmission/refining, covered operations management and engineering design at Pakistan’s Sui Gas Transmission Company (now SSGC). He was design engineer on the Indus Right Bank Pipeline Project – Pakistan’s first independently-designed heavy mechanical construction project. In the public sector, his responsibilities included automotive production engineering, project management and general management, his last assignment being General Manager/CEO/Board Member in the Pakistan Automobile Corporation.
World Bank
In the World Bank (1981-2006), he has handled a wide variety of responsibilities, in senior management, in country and program management, and as an energy specialist.
Senior Management: As Director of Operations, in addition to managing the implementation of the World Bank Institute’s significantly expanded strategy, he was a member of two of the World Bank’s top management committees, the Operations Committee and Operations Policy Committee. He was Chief of the World Bank’s Office in Romania where he helped the country reverse its economic decline thereby securing its path to European integration. He was head of the World Bank’s Office in Turkey where he managed the turnaround of one of the Bank’s largest country portfolios (US$3.5 billion). He was Deputy Chief of the Bank’s Regional Mission for Central Asia, which he helped establish.
Energy Sector: He was Task Manager for the World Bank on a large number of energy operations, the most significant of which are: (i) the $1.1 billion Russia Oil Rehabilitation Project, the largest ever investment operation of the Bank and its first in Russia, introducing major reforms in the world’s largest upstream petroleum sector; and (ii) the $1 billion Oso Condensate Project in Nigeria, which produced and exported over 100,000 barrels/day. He managed the Central and Eastern Europe Regional Energy Network which provided analytical foundations for extensive energy investment in the region. He helped establish the Bank’s global Energy Sector Management Assistance Program and played a lead role in its expansion and funding to encompass 45 developing countries world-wide. He helped establish the Bank’s energy program in Central Asia. He was the Bank’s energy advisor in South Asia and East Africa. In Uganda, he advised the post-conflict Government in reforming its energy policy and institutions and in significantly expanding its power supply. In Pakistan, he played a central role in energy sector reforms in the early 1980s including introducing integrated policy formulation and expanding energy sector investment. After retirement, he remained a consultant advisor to senior management.
In an individual capacity, he has worked on the revitalization of an integrated approach to energy policy which had been championed by the World Bank in the early ’80s but dropped in the early ’90s. He has published widely and lectured extensively on the subject. Responding to strong demand from developing countries, the World Bank, in its latest energy strategy, has once again made this a centerpiece of future energy reform across the developing world.
Publications
He has published widely and represented the World Bank in over 200 international forums and media events. He has given talks at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Atlantic Council, Yale, Princeton, Fletcher, MIT and Georgetown University, as well as at other universities and professional institutions in Central and East Europe, Central Asia, East and West Africa, Turkey, Pakistan and the Russian Federation.
In the area of Integrated Energy Policy for Pakistan, his four most recent (post-World Bank) publications are: (i) “Putting it All Together” in the book “Pakistan’s Interminable Energy Crisis: Is There a Way Out” published by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars (2015); (ii) “A Case for More Integrated and Coordinated Planning and Policymaking” an energy policy brief for Pakistan published by the Woodrow Wilson Center (Sept. 2014); (iii) “Pakistan’s Energy Sector: From Crisis to Crisis – Breaking the Chain” published by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (Oct. 2012); (iv) “Turning Energy Around” in the book “Pakistan Beyond the Crisis State”, Maleeha Lodhi (ed), published by Columbia University Press, C. Hurst of London, Oxford University Press (2011).
Board Memberships, Professional Affiliations and Qualifications
He has held numerous board and international/national committee memberships. Currently, in Pakistan, he is on the board of the Institute of Public Policy, which he helped establish; a Visiting Senior Fellow of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics as well as at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, Lahore School of Economics.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, UK. He is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK). He is also a Member of the Pakistan’s Institute of Petroleum, Institute of Engineers, and the Engineering Council. He has advanced degrees in engineering (Shell Scholar, University of Technology, Loughborough, UK) and management (Executive Education, Harvard Business School), and an R&D apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce Aero-Engine Division, UK.