Job Description/Specification:
MBK Global is seeking an entrepreneurial General Manager to establish and scale an additive manufacturing business focused on building sovereign manufacturing capability in Qatar. The role combines industrial strategy, commercial development, manufacturing, partnerships, finance, quality, and operational leadership across critical sectors such as oil and gas, aviation, defence, and other demanding industries.
The successful candidate will take the business from feasibility and formation through commercial delivery and profitable growth, while converting existing proofs of concept into repeat customer adoption.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and execute the business plan, feasibility study, financial model, and phased mobilisation roadmap.
- Validate market demand, identify attractive applications, and determine manufacturing technologies, facilities, and investment priorities.
- Lead business establishment activities including permits, facilities, equipment, operating systems, and supplier arrangements.
- Develop funding proposals and investment cases while identifying applicable subsidies and industrial development support.
- Lead negotiations with international partners covering governance, investment, technology transfer, intellectual property, licensing, quality, and commercial rights.
- Build relationships with industrial operators, OEMs, government stakeholders, and other ecosystem participants.
- Develop the customer pipeline, lead tenders and proposals, and negotiate commercial agreements within delegated authority.
- Convert successful proofs of concept into repeat orders, framework agreements, and long-term customer relationships.
- Oversee engineering, manufacturing, post-processing, inspection, testing, qualification, logistics, and customer acceptance.
- Establish appropriate quality, health and safety, traceability, cybersecurity, supplier assurance, and technical documentation processes.
- Own the P&L, budgets, cash flow, working capital, capital expenditure, pricing, costing, margins, and business performance.
- Recruit and develop the team while building local technical capability through partner knowledge transfer and workforce development.
Requirements
The role calls for substantial industrial and commercial leadership experience. Essential requirements include:
- Significant oil and gas industry experience, particularly across asset integrity, reliability, maintenance, supply chain, asset operations, or asset management.
- Demonstrated success establishing, scaling, or transforming an industrial business or significant business unit.
- Commercial and financial accountability, including experience with P&L and business performance.
- Experience delivering complex industrial projects or manufacturing programmes where safety, quality, specification, and schedule are critical.
- Sufficient technical knowledge of additive manufacturing, materials, qualification, and manufacturing economics to lead specialists and make investment decisions.
- Understanding of critical spare parts, equipment lifecycle management, obsolescence, and supply-chain disruption.
- Experience working with OEMs and handling intellectual property, licensing, or contract manufacturing arrangements.
- Strong negotiation and partnership-development capabilities.
- Cultural awareness and the ability to build durable professional relationships in Qatar.
- Engineering or closely related technical qualification, or equivalent demonstrable professional experience.
- Strong professional English, international travel flexibility, and the ability to mobilise immediately and work full-time in Qatar.
Particularly Valuable Experience
Candidates may bring additional value through:
- Direct leadership experience in metal additive manufacturing or advanced industrial manufacturing.
- Experience establishing manufacturing facilities, industrial joint ventures, or localized technology capabilities.
- Aviation or defence qualification and customer experience.
- Qatar or wider GCC industrial development and supply-chain experience.
- Experience developing national talent and transferring technical expertise from international partners.
Who Should Apply?
This position is aimed at senior industrial leaders rather than candidates with purely technical additive manufacturing backgrounds. The ideal profile combines business-building experience with an understanding of industrial assets, critical spare parts, manufacturing, supply chains, and customer qualification requirements.
Professionals who have previously built an industrial venture, established a manufacturing capability, led a major business unit, or transformed an industrial operation may be particularly relevant. The role also requires someone comfortable working directly with customers, international technology partners, government stakeholders, boards, and technical specialists.
Skills That Will Help You Succeed
The role requires a balance of entrepreneurial initiative and industrial discipline. You will need to make decisions with incomplete information while maintaining clear standards around safety, quality, technical validation, and commercial risk.
Important capabilities include strategic planning, investment analysis, negotiation, P&L management, project delivery, customer development, partnership management, technical evaluation, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.
A strong understanding of how additive manufacturing can address lead-time reduction, supply-chain resilience, obsolescence, and difficult-to-source components will also be important.
How to Stand Out
A strong CV should demonstrate measurable evidence of businesses or industrial capabilities you have built or scaled. Include the size of the operation, revenue or margin improvement, investment managed, team size, major customers, production capability, or other measurable outcomes where appropriate.
Clearly connect your experience to oil and gas asset operations, maintenance, reliability, supply chain, manufacturing, and critical spare parts. Experience involving OEMs, technology transfer, joint ventures, contract manufacturing, or industrial localization should also be prominent.
If you have additive manufacturing experience, explain the applications, materials, qualification processes, production environments, and commercial outcomes you have been responsible for.
Interview Preparation
Candidates should be prepared for a commercially and technically demanding discussion. Likely areas include:
- How you would establish an additive manufacturing business from an early-stage concept.
- How you would assess whether a proposed component is commercially and technically suitable for additive manufacturing.
- How you would convert proofs of concept into repeat customer orders.
- How you would structure relationships with international manufacturing or technology partners.
- How you would manage intellectual property, licensing, quality responsibility, and product liability.
- How you would determine investment priorities and scale manufacturing capacity.
- How you would manage P&L, cash flow, pricing, margins, and capital expenditure.
- How you have previously built local capability or transferred knowledge from international partners.
- How you would balance speed of execution with safety, qualification, quality, and customer confidence.
Career Growth
The General Manager will have unusually broad responsibility, with the opportunity to shape an industrial business from its foundations through commercial growth. The role provides exposure to manufacturing, technology partnerships, critical-sector customers, investment, industrial localization, and business development.
The remuneration package includes a fixed base salary, performance-related pay, and shares subject to agreed vesting terms, aligning the role with the longer-term development of the business.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Where is the General Manager role based?
The position requires full-time work in Qatar, with immediate mobilisation requested.
2. Which industries are central to the business?
The initiative is focused on critical sectors including oil and gas, aviation, defence, and other demanding industrial environments.
3. Is additive manufacturing experience mandatory?
The role requires sufficient technical understanding of industrial additive manufacturing, materials, qualification, and manufacturing economics. Direct leadership experience in metal additive manufacturing is described as particularly valuable.
4. What seniority is expected?
This is a senior business leadership position with responsibility spanning strategy, operations, commercial development, finance, people, partnerships, quality, risk, and P&L.
5. What should applicants demonstrate in their application?
The source specifically asks candidates to outline an industrial business or capability they have built or scaled, measurable results, relevant oil and gas/asset management/manufacturing experience, current location, and earliest mobilisation date in Qatar.