Interview with our Project Manager, Bárbara Grossi Hamdan

Hi everyone, I'm Amesha from the Akazuz recruitment team and welcome to our monthly podcast session. Today I have the pleasure of interviewing one of our talented project managers at Akazuz, Barbara Grossi Hamdan. She has recently transitioned her focus from education projects to our immunization work in Mozambique. Join me as we explore her experiences and insights during this exciting change. Welcome Barbara. Hello and thank you. Thank you as well Barbara for accepting my invitation. I think it would be best to start our discussion with your introduction and the story of how you joined Akazuz. Yes, of course, so hi once again. Thanks for having me and hello to everyone listening. So as you probably picked up by now, my name is Barbara and our project manager here at Akazuz currently based in our Dubai office. Originally, I'm from Brazil and prior to joining Akazuz, I worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group here in the Middle East. And I remember that when I was approaching my two year mark with the company, I was doing a lot of sourcing, self-reflecting, etc. About what should be my career path because to be quite honest with all of you, although I was having a valuable and good experience, I kind of felt like something was missing. And ultimately, I just didn't feel really fulfilled. So in this self-reflection process, there were two things that came out to me that were quite important to choose an next step. So the first one was purpose. I wanted my next role to be something that I felt was truly meaningful. Where I could feel that I was making a positive impact. So that was an art star and a driving force for me. The second one that was also quite important was values. I wanted to work in an environment and in a company where I could be myself and that I felt aligned and resonated with some of my personal values. And at this point, and as I was deciding those things and starting to look elsewhere for a career move, a certain deputy would have it. A recruiter from a cast was reached out to me about an opportunity with the company. I did some research then, and I was really impressed with the work that a cast was doing. And I became quite excited about the prospect to explore the possibility of working with them. And it feels, it's weird because it feels like it was yesterday, but also feels like a long time. And MS, you were actually the one that was my first in person interview. I'm not sure if you remember because you probably have millions of interviews. But yeah. So I would say almost a year and a half ago we had this first interview and then I went through the recruitment process. And thankfully the process went well and I was very fortunate to receive the offer. So in June of 2023 last year, I joined the cast and to be honest, it's been really incredible journey since then. Thank you so much for sharing that Barbara. Of course, I remember you, but also it really does sound like perfect timing with you hearing about the casus receiving this opportunity. For listeners who may not be familiar with our work at the casus, could you please tell us more about your transition from the education projects to your current working Mozambique. What were some of the biggest changes you experienced in this shift? Yes, of course. So there were definitely many different layers in terms of change. I think the first and perhaps the most obvious one is in terms of contents. So in the education role, the project focused a lot on foundational learning. The educational learning is in very simple terms. The ability to read and write and do basic mathematics. So in this role, I was building up a deeper knowledge or base, especially in foundational learning. And I became familiar with the key global actors, the relevant indicators. And I really spent a lot of that a lot of times to the initiatives and policies to really understand what could drive transformative change in foundational learning. And they also explored the main chain challenges and barriers within that field, moving from education to health and then particularly immunization meant that I had to develop a new knowledge base. So I had to start understanding a new kind of ecosystem of stakeholders, new performance indicators, activities, challenges that were specific true immunization. And for instance, you typically don't see immediate results after implement a program. So for example, if you are starting a reading initiative, it takes time before you can actually see the impact in literacy levels among the children that might be part of this program. And I would say that it's quite different. So if you look at the metrics such as vaccination coverage that can shift. After a single intervention and you can have this more noticeable effect in a relatively short amount of time. Of course that efforts are needed to sustain improvements over time, but I would say that there is more of a binary and immediate aspect to it. I would say that this kind of difference in the impact meant to for me that I also had to rethink how to approach project planning, how to set effective milestones, how to track our progress, etc. And then the other shift was moving from global and more strategic perspective in foundational learning to a role that was very much country specific and very much geared towards implementation. So here it's like really working at the ground from the national at the national level, but also extending out of the way to individual health facilities. And actually I'm now going through a second transition, so I'm still working within the Mozambique landscape, but I'm moving from an immunization to another project in which we're supporting the ministry with enhancing project management capacity. And the goal here is that this can ultimately support with decreasing the disease burden around selected diseases for the country. And once again, it's a very steep learning curve. There are a lot of new metrics that need to be that need to be learned, but to be honest, I really love it. And I think it's amazing that as part of my job, I have the opportunity to learn to find out new things and specially access to different experts that are part of the ecosystem and that can teach us so much. Thank you so much Barbara, that really sounds like an exciting shift in both scope and focus, as you mentioned. I would like to understand our work in Mozambique more, so could you please describe the current project landscape there and what are some of the key challenges and opportunities you are encountering in your work in Mozambique. Yeah, I'll do my best to share my perspective. And perhaps I'd like to start around the opportunities or the things that have released to doubt to me in a positive manner. The first one. Like for lack of a better terminology, I would say is like the people quality element. So we are in an environment that is, as you can imagine, quite resource constrained. And since I started working there, I'm truly amazed and truly inspired by the passion, the commitment and also the creativity that the teams, whether it's from the government, from partners and also our castes team in thinking of solutions that can happen within this resource constraint environment, how to make the most with less for maximum impact. Another thing that I also see that I find quite impressive is the strong government commitment and the strong policy framework behind it, which in my opinion, foster a really clear platform that can scale up success for interventions and in turn, and long term immunization efforts. In terms of challenges, as everywhere else, obviously, there are a few. I don't want to talk about the very obvious ones like limited infrastructure, funding, et cetera, but perhaps more different things that are so stood out to me. I think one thing perhaps is around data. limited availability of frequent and quality data that can enable us as well as other actors in the system to plan in an appropriate manner and also assess the progress and course correct when needed. I also think that more in more operational terms in the distribution of population in rural areas. These areas with difficult access and also low density of community pose a unique challenge in terms of planning efforts to reach these communities that cannot be served by individual health facilities. Because as I mentioned before, it's a resource-consstrained environment. And if you have these large pockets of population with low density, it just means that you have to be more creative and more intentional about your planning. And then finally, I see great opportunity in streamlining and synergizing the external support that comes into the country. I think there is a lot of space and a lot of opportunity to truly gather around the government agenda to have frank discussions about needs. And for the government partners to come together, avoid duplications and directing the funding and the support in a way that's the most meaningful to the country. Thank you for sharing Barbara. It sounds like there is so much potential and exciting work happening in Mozambique right now. Can you also share maybe a success story or a moment that has particularly inspired you during your time working on projects in Mozambique? Yes, for sure. So I remember that in my first week in the project and it was my first time in Mozambique with the project. And I would say my second time in Mozambique in my life. My client was coming to my put to meet us and kind of get a post check on the projects projects, projects, progress, understand our plan, et cetera. And I remember that at that point in time, I was already quite apprehensive because I was running a team that was already set up already running and a team that had a very deep knowledge of the content, the client, they stakeholders, et cetera. And I was much better understanding, I would say than myself at that point. So a part of me wondered if I'd be able to integrate well with the team. If together in such a short amount of amount of time, we would be able to develop together, I quality material, if our kick off meeting would be productive, et cetera. And what really inspired me in this first week was that the entire team, even outside of the people that were directly involved in the project were really eager to help me with a skilling and understanding. All of us kind of came together to produce really, really good material to inform this meeting. I remember that the country manager took time to review the deck and also offer his more in depth expertise on how we could first the strengthening. And I remember that there was also another project manager that runs the global strategy did the same offering another perspective for the review and the team and I in constant communication figuring out what had to get done who could do it, how to improve things further, et cetera. And it felt quite inspiring to see team work at this level so early in our work together. And there is something that I remember very vividly that the morning of this meeting were all around the table. So myself, the country manager, senior associate and the other PM that I mentioned before. And we were kind of like reviewing the deck, making some last minutes changes. And I remember the comments that were still coming in from our leadership. And at this time, I was like slightly freaking out and by like slightly freaking out, that's an understatement. I was like totally freaking out. And I just remember the common is of everyone like no, this is going to work out well like you can't really relax. And it just felt like we had worked together for such a long time because no one was like talking over each other, everyone came in with like a consideration or a contribution in part that they were quite strong at. And it was just really cool to see. And now, I was like five or so months later. I'm really, really happy to say that I really do feel part of the team. I feel integrated quite well. I feel really motivated to continue to learn more about the country, about the sector, etc. It's clear that the dedication and collaboration with the team have made the project even more impactful. And as for my last question in our discussion, I would go with one that we ask at the end of every Akazus podcast episode. What is your favorite memory of working with us with Akazus so far? So that's a very hard question because I would say that there are many great moments. But if I have to pick just one, I think I'll go back to my little introduction and what really drew me to Akazus and share a memory that's around purpose. I remember that the first time that I went to the field to a country mission was in the education project and we were visiting a partner program in one of our focused countries. And in this program, it was basically a school in which they were running remediation program. The education program in very simple terms is an initiative to help children who are falling behind in their learning, whether that's reading or mathematics, to gain the skills that they need to catch up on the learning and not fall behind. So seeing this program and seeing firsthand the impact that a program like this can have on a child's life, how good teaching methodologies can really make children engaged and then equipped with the skills that they need was really interesting. It's really interesting to see that for them performing well in school meant that they were also generally feeling happier, skipping school as and et cetera. And that for me was quite transformational. I know it must sound very cliche, but for me it's true, but every opportunity that I had with Akazus to be on the field and to see the impact of interventions on the ground and understanding the challenges that teachers face or health professionals face et cetera just put everything into perspective for me. It's a fire that I want to do more, I want to do better and et cetera. So that's a favorite memory and I would imagine that every trip to the field would then be another favorite memory. Thank you for sharing Barbara such a powerful memory as you also mentioned. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us and taking the time to do this. Thank you for everyone who has been listening. For more podcast episodes, visitors. If you're interested in this podcast and don't forget to follow us on our social media platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. We will be back soon with the next podcast episode. Stay tuned, stay safe and take care.