About the Book

“Elie Sehnaoui, a Loughborough University and MIT-trained engineer, has written a fascinating and useful primer for young engineers and architects as they prepare to launch their professional careers. He distills his long business experience working in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe into a series of short chapters on contracts, public relations, project financing, real estate development, and engineering law.

“Sehnaoui’s most powerful and salient piece of advice is that in spite of the spread of globalization and English as the lingua franca of business, local traditions and cultures still matter. The engineers and architects most likely to succeed will be those who bother to familiarize themselves with the language and customs of the country or region in which they work.

“Civil engineers and designers can do no better than to carry this valuable field guide with them as they move from country to country and project to project.”

– Professor Philip S. Khoury, Associate Provost, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

About the Author

Elie Antoine Sehnaoui, P.E., was educated in Lebanon, England, the United States and France. He is a well established engineer with broad experience in consulting and construction, and has worked on several continents on a variety of projects in the public and private sectors. He is presently an international technical and management consultant with a principal residence in Beirut where he lives. After a long and happy life with his American-born wife, Caroline Rogers Neill, he is a widower with three grown and married children living in the United States, Switzerland, and China.