International Women’s Day: Nazli Demiroren

Today’s featured woman is Nazli Demiroren, our Product Line Manager, who is responsible for providing production optimisation solutions for brownfield assets of our clients in the ECIS region.

After growing up in Istanbul, Nazli moved to Texas A&M university where she graduated with a masters in Petroleum Engineering. She then worked offshore in the Caspian Sea for many years and actually accomplished the first live well test data transmission to clients to interpret the data in real time in 2007!

Nazli then moved to Aberdeen with her partner, and after becoming a mother, decided to embark on a new journey and start her MBA degree with Imperial College Business School, before joining Expro.

• What advice would you have given your younger self?

Don’t be so hard on yourself and only do the things that make you genuinely happy. And, please listen to your ‘true-self’ more often. Keep in mind that if you are acting against your inner voice, you are most probably doing something wrong which will always reveal itself one way or another. So have self-compassion and consider your own experienced intuition, in addition to weighing up the facts, before making a serious decision.

• Why do you think diversity is so important in the workplace?

I very much believe in the inclusivity of all – not only at work, but in all aspects of mine and my family’s lives. It is simply because there is so much power and synergy in diversity that not one single main stream can outdo it on its own… it is a fact. The brains of each individual all work so differently that adding more brain power that ticks slightly differently than the other from a different mind-set is always a plus for the workforce.

Our industry has typically been dominated by men. Have you faced any challenges coming into the industry and how did you overcome them?

I have been through so many of those in my professional life.

• I worked on offshore rigs where no one apart from the company man could speak English and there was no toilet in the accommodation, only male restrooms that were available in the communal changing areas,
• Or, I worked on land rigs in the middle of nowhere being the only female with similar situations of not being able to use the basic utilities,
• Or, I worked as a well tester and needed to rig up the well testing piping equipment which really made me think that sometimes men and women are not built equally from a physical capabilities point of view; so I kindly left the hammering up the pipework task in the capable hands of the strongest males!!

However, I always managed to find the humour in every difficult situation and reminded myself that it is only temporary after all. Being kind, I have realised I was always surrounded by people who offered help to me to overcome the difficulties. I was very fortunate for all the experiences I have faced and feel like I have a lot to share over a few beers now. I have never thought being a woman was a disadvantage but was always a plus for the team I worked with. Everything the oilfield threw at me, I responded with a smile on my face and determination in my mind to overcome the challenges. Being a part of the solution always made my life easier for me.