Shamir Sheikkariem - Business Developer
Episode 3: Building a business career with passion and dedication - Shamir Sheikkariem
Communicating with different people & applying his passion and experience to the work define him the best. In this episode, we had a conversation with Shamir Sheikkariem to uncover what he does at Cleopatra Enterprise, how he applies his background in mining to his daily work, his latest business trip to Latin America, and more.
Discover his story which begins in Suriname as a professional who grew into a Business Developer & Mining Expert based in the Netherlands.
Transcript from the Sneak Peek
Bram Rouppe (B.R.): Hi, and welcome to the “HonesTea Podcast.” My name is Bram, I work as a corporate recruiter at Cleopatra Enterprise. And today I’m joined by Shamir, we’ll be talking about the role, the engineers, the team dynamics and how the team contributes to the future of our field. As the podcast name suggests, we always start off by asking the question on the teabags. Shamir, thank you for being here.
Shamir Sheikkariem (S.S.): Thank you for having me.
B.R.: Can you start off by asking the question on the teabag?
S.S.: Yes, so the question is, what is your favorite movie genre?
B.R.: So what is it?
S.S.: Well. Depends on the day, depends on my mood, but I like a variety of genres. Usually, the main denominator is I like something that’s based on real life, on a true story, or on history. And sometimes also a bit drama comedy, so it depends.
B.R.: Yeah, so a lot of like war movies, series and stuff?
S.S.: Yeah, I like those genres.
B.R.: Yeah, is there any specific movie in particular, you like the most?
S.S.: So there’s two movies that really impacted me. Which, first one is “Braveheart”. The second one is “The Shawshank Redemption.”
B.R.: Classics.
S.S.: And what I like about those movies is persistency. Like never giving up, always sticking to your core values, and really pushing forward.
B.R.: So can you explain a bit more about what you do on a, you know, day-to-day basis? Like what does the job look like?
S.S.: So on a day-to-day basis, Yeah, so the title is Business Developer, but what it entails is that you’re trying, first of all, you should know your product, you should know the solutions you have to offer. And based on that, try to investigate, okay how can those solutions support, help clients in various industries? Which in my case is the mining industry. How can they support and improve the way they execute projects, the way they develop projects. And based on that, develop business, generate leads, and also in the end bring solutions to the clients, and help them overcome the many challenges they have.
B.R.: And of all the things you do, what is the thing you like most? Like, is it like internal stakeholders, communication? Is it, you know, discussing with clients how we can solve their business problems? So what is the most fun thing?
S.S.: So first of all, there’s several. So first of all, our vision at Cleopatra Enterprise is a vision of a integrated approach to project cost management. So internally, what I love is also the integration between our different departments. So the interaction and collaboration with other teams, whether it be marketing, whether it be the implementation consultants, or the knowledge-based consultants, or HR is really having that integrated approach and collaboration, that’s what I love. The second part I really love about my work is communicating with clients. Seeing the commonalities, and understanding their needs and challenges, and also their day-to-day issues. And then guiding them to that process where you see that, you know, they really are happy with what we have to offer.
B.R.: Yeah, and of course at start, I mentioned you just came back from Latin America.
S.S.: Yes.
B.R.: Well, that means that you’re traveling of course. Is that something that’s happening commonly in the job, or like?
S.S.: It’s part of the job as, you know, we’re a company that are operating globally, we have clients globally, so traveling is certainly part of the job. But it’s also very satisfying because you learn a lot, and you also get to engage with the clients on the ground, understand their culture, understand the differences in the needs and challenges in different parts of the world, so it’s part of the job but also a nice part of the job.
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