90th Anniversary
Young employees dig into Aramco’s history
Young Leaders Advisory Board points path to the future by mining our past.
Key milestones in Aramco’s 90-year history — from the signing of the oil concession agreement in 1933 to the IPO in 2019 — were discussed by a group of young employees at Ithra.
The event was the latest from the Young Leaders Advisory Board (YLAB), which strives to amplify the voices of young professionals throughout the company and involve them in important conversations relevant to Aramco.
The YLAB Café forum, held on May 17, focused on the company’s history ahead of the 90th anniversary and was led by Nouf S. Ghamdi, a coordinator at the Heritage Gallery, and moderator Abdulrahman A. Ayoub, a YLAB board member.
Sense of ‘pride’
For Ayoub, he wanted the people attending to have a better understanding of the company that they work for so they could feel an even greater sense of “pride.”
I wanted people to understand the evolution of Aramco from its humble beginnings — in terms of production and impact — to where the company is today.
— Abdulrahman A. Ayoub
“I also wanted to explore the fact that Aramco is more than just a company that is looking to make profits — even though we do make huge profits. The company is constantly thinking about its positive impact on both Saudi Arabia and across the globe.”
Ghamdi took the audience through a potted history of Aramco as she wanted to “show the story behind the company,” before there was an interactive question and answer session with the attendees at the end of the hour.
Family ties
The company’s story is also a personal one for Ghamdi, who is a second-generation Aramcon.
“My father worked for Aramco, and ever since I was a child, I had this feeling that everyone who worked for Aramco felt incredible pride in the company,” she said.
This feeling was reflected by many people in the audience, with several of them either second- or third-generation Aramcons.
One of them was Faisal A. Abdullah, a petroleum engineer in the Unconventional Resources Engineering and Project Management Department, whose uncle and grandfather both worked for the company.
“Many of the historic milestones that we talked about in the session reminded me of the stories that I heard from my grandfather and uncle when I was growing up,” he said.
However, Abdullah’s thoughts then quickly turned to the company’s future.
He said that the session helped remind him that Aramco is on a “continuous journey that our fathers and grandfathers started and that our children will inherit.”
The future
The idea of cultivating the next generation is an important one for YLAB.
Suliman M. Alodhiani, a part-time member with YLAB and working with the Northern Area Production Engineering Department, organized the 90th anniversary event.
He said it was important for young people to “be part of the discussion” in Aramco and that the forum “was just one of the events that YLAB holds to keep employees informed.”
Mohammed A. Almahfoudh, a senior P&PM analyst in the HR Development Division and YLAB part-time member, added that it was important for the attendees to learn more about the company’s history.
He said: “This session has coincided with the company’s 90th anniversary, and we thought that it was both an important and interesting topic for the youth because some people don’t know the wealth of history of Aramco.”
Caption for top photo: Key moments in Aramco’s history were discussed during the hour-long event at Ithra, Dhahran