Nancy Elsharkawi

Born & raised in Canada, with Egyptian roots, studied in Libya, Alexandria and Canada, and worked with Shell in Egypt and Abu Dhabi.

Nancy talks to Al Mahara about her family, life, career and aspirations.

Growing up overseas made me embrace the meaning of diversity for its very core, respecting others’ ways of doing things, traditions, and appreciating the quality of life.

Born in Canada, I am the eldest of two children, my brother, Adam is 17 years my junior. My father is an engineer, who started off his career, ironically, with Shell Canada as a geophysicist. By the age of nine, my family moved to Libya, where I attended school until grade nine, then moved to boarding school in Alexandria, Egypt, to later finish High School in Canada.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary. Following in my father’s footsteps in the industry, I started my career as a process engineer, with Tri Ocean Engineering Ltd. where I built up my experience level through to a senior process engineer leading several successful projects. I was also seconded to Shell Canada to do some development facilities work, pipeline network modeling and overall feasibility studies.

In 2001, I was presented with the opportunity to join Shell Egypt as a Development Engineer, later to become Facilities Engineer & Technical Advisor. In 2004, I married Sven Eikmeier in Cairo. He is German who spent nearly 15 years of his life living in Egypt. We both have careers in the Oil & Gas industry. Later in the year we moved to Italy, where we both landed jobs for the same Engineering Company, CTIP Oil & Gas.

In 2006, we moved to Abu Dhabi to start a new life, and I joined Shell Abu Dhabi as a CO2 technical advisor to work on the Masdar alliance. Working again at Shell has not only reconnected me to many great people around the globe, but also introduced me to a strong, supportive, wonderful mix of people working in Abu Dhabi.

I have strong ambitions to continue my career with Shell for the long term in countries around the globe. My experience in Shell is challenging and I hope that I will be able to prosper into my long-term career aspirations with the company in the future.

In September 2005, our daughter, Kinsey Savannah was born. This was a life changing moment, redistributing all my priorities in life and short-term career goals. I am enjoying life with my family in Abu Dhabi and we believe it is a good place to bring up our family. We are expecting our second child later this year, and we are very excited about what lies ahead in the future.