Location, location, location

Tom Bower, WSP managing director.
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As a global provider of structural engineering services, WSP is soon to be a key player in the ME construction market. The company’s brand new managing director for the region, Tom Bower, talks exclusively to CW about his plans.

In the ten years that WSP has had an office in the GCC region, the company’s executives have worked hard to establish themselves in an unknown and competitive market. Faced with a two year long recession just eight years into its new project, the firm might be seen as somewhat unfortunate. But far from being finished with the Middle East location, WSP is just getting started.

Indeed, as the rest of the industry brushes off the final stresses of the economic downturn, WSP is optimistically preparing for a strong grasp of the GCC market in the next few years.

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And with a view to becoming a major player in the region's construction industry, the firm has appointed a brand new managing director, whose ambitious plans for the future are based on a pervasive upturn.

Incidentally, Tom Bower is not one of those fierce, all-knowing types. His experience and optimism, coupled with an eye for opportunity, is what makes him interesting.

Speaking about his new role in line with WSP's plans for the region, he says: “The group overall is very positive about future business here in the Middle East, whether it be in the UAE or in other locations. We are very much committed to the UAE location and the wider Middle East region."

Currently, the majority of WSP projects are based in Abu Dhabi. Among them is the Masdar project, where WSP's ability to advise on sustainability has been a key driving force behind the project's success.

"We’ve been working on the Masdar project in Abu Dhabi to advise the teams on sustainability there," Bower explains. "We are also involved in completing the design, where both our UK business and Middle East business have been working jointly. We have a number of projects on Saadiyat Island as well."

Perhaps WSP's biggest project at the moment, and certainly one of their biggest challenges, is the high profile Abu Dhabi Presidential Palace development.

Bower exemplifies its importance by comparing it to the Houses of Parliament in the UK: “The Presidential Palace is a very high profile project, and probably one of the most premier buildings in Abu Dhabi. The finish is to an incredibly high spec, as you can imagine, as it's going to be where the Sheikh Khalifa does his meetings and greetings for the whole of the UAE - it’s like the houses of parliament for the UAE, it’s that level of building.”

Dubai projects, on the other hand, are thinner on the ground. With fewer and fewer high rise towers, which just so happen to be WSP’s speciality, there is little for the company to do in the city, except wait.