“I’ve learned a lot about myself and my ability to manage”
Sidonie Moundi Elimbi is a project manager for Actemium Cameroon's largest maintenance contract. We look at the unusual track record of a determined woman who has seized opportunities as they have presented themselves.
Project manager at Actemium Cameroon, Sidonie Moundi Elimbi, 42, manages the maintenance contract for oil company Perenco, VINCI Energies’ biggest client in the country. Specialising in HSEQ (health, safety, environment and quality), her career at Actemium began with the Limbe refinery extension project in south-west Cameroon.
“In 2019, management offered me the role of junior project manager for the Perenco contract. I must say that I was a little concerned about taking on such responsibility! But I was fortunate to have had as my mentor the incumbent project manager Alain Zeh Messi (known as father Alain), someone with a great deal of experience and highly respected.”
The Covid 19 pandemic proved to be a trial by fire. “It wasn’t easy, but I learned a lot about my new role and about myself, my ability to be a manager.”
Alone at the helm since 2021, Sidonie Moundi Elimbi now heads up 253 people, including 251 men.
“I’m supervising teams and making sure that services are being delivered properly, completion times are being met and of course that safety instructions are being complied with and the environment protected.” Her goal is to “become a business unit manager, still in the maintenance sector.”