The Major Project Podcast

In this extended conversation with AJ Waters, we go beyond the job site and into the question a lot of younger people are asking right now: is construction still a safe bet? AJ makes the case that it absolutely is and that AI isn’t the threat people think it is, as long as you learn to use it. He shares what he wishes he’d known earlier, why construction needs curious techies just as much as it ne...

In this episode, Orion sits down with AJ Waters, field COO for public sector at Procore, host of The Engineerd Life podcast, and one of the most widely-traveled and well-connected people in the construction industry. Orion started the Major Project Podcast to bottle the kind of insight you normally only get in the hallway at conferences. AJ has been to hundreds of those conferences and today he op...

Project control teams are bigger than ever; more schedulers, more risk managers, more reporting managers. And according to Ahmed Abdelfattah, they're delivering worse results than when one planner ran everything with Primavera P3. After nearly 20 years across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Australia, including a 500-person management team at NEOM, Ahmed has a clear diagnosis: the discipline stopped serv...

In this bonus episode, Hannah Garrett shares practical advice for students, career changers, and professionals hoping to enter the fast-growing data center industry. She explains why emerging leaders should embrace AI, learn by experimenting, and focus on simplifying complex systems. Hannah and Orion also discuss why speed may replace complexity as a competitive advantage, how AI could reshape tra...

About half of all US data centers scheduled to open this year are delayed or canceled. Hannah Garrett isn't surprised. She's been watching tech and construction try to figure each other out for a decade, and says the real problem isn't energy, equipment, or even AI. It's that nobody fixed their operational structure before the boom hit. Hannah Garrett has 10 years across both sides of data center...

Bruno Caldas didn't take a traditional path into the world of billion-dollar projects - he started building computers at 14, earned a mechatronics engineering degree, and landed on a $20 billion iron ore project in the jungles of Guinea within two years of graduating. In this bonus segment, Bruno shares what he'd tell his younger self: get comfortable with discomfort, learn the tools that nobody e...

Bruno Caldas has built dashboards on a laptop in the African jungle, trained 300 people on SAP, and is now building AI agent teams for one of the world's largest mining companies. The throughline across 18 years in the industry is always the same: the data foundation comes first. Bruno Caldas is a project controls and business intelligence professional at Rio Tinto, sitting at the intersection of...

Omer Iqbal returns for a bonus episode focused on career advice for project controls professionals - from how to actually get noticed in an organization, to why doing everything by the book might be holding you back. He shares his go-to books, the two habits he says can transform any career, and why staying curious is more than just good advice. If you're early in your career or feeling stuck, thi...

Most project teams are exceptionally good at delivering a project the wrong way. Omer Iqbal has spent 20 years learning to fix that - from the portfolio level. Omer Iqbal is Senior Portfolio Manager in the Investment PMO at Sydney Water, where he oversees a $30 billion capital program serving 6 million people. His career has run from site engineering on a $20M oil and gas job to board service, MBA...

In this bonus segment, Iwona Wilson shares her advice for the next generation of project leaders. She makes the case for developing critical thinking above all else, explains how AI is reshaping the skills students need to stay relevant, and offers practical guidance on where to find the right experiences early in your career. Iwona also walks through her book, her decision gate training program,...

Every major capital project team will tell you they have a decision gate process. According to Iwona Wilson, having the process and having the capability to use it are two completely different things - and the gap between them is costing the industry hundreds of millions per project. Iwona Wilson is co-founder and CEO of Wilson Biz Consulting and author of Where Projects Are Won or Lost: A Practic...

Most major projects manage risk in Excel. Matt Mitchell spent a decade managing it differently - including as risk lead on a $3.9 billion offshore gas platform in the Mediterranean. In this episode, Orion sits down with Matt Mitchell — a certified risk management professional with over a decade of experience across energy and industrial megaprojects — to go deep on one of the most underinvested di...

Before the panel started, the moderator was warned: "Good luck controlling this bunch." Four AACE presidents. 150+ combined years. They lived up to it. Recorded live at the 2026 AACE Houston Gulf Coast Symposium, host Orion Matthews sits down with four current and former AACE International Presidents for an unfiltered conversation on leadership, AI, remote work, and the future of project controls...

The project controls industry has a looming problem—and it's not technical. In this episode, Orion sits down with Christina Robinson — founder of Henry Porter LLC and project controls advisor with 14 years across energy, utilities, and infrastructure — to diagnose a crisis that most industry leaders are misreading. The problem isn't a skills shortage: it's a culture and systems problem that's caus...

Most project failures aren’t caused by a single issue - they’re the result of broken integration. In this episode, Orion sits down with Ellie Moradinezhad, founder of tactHive Consulting and former Global Discipline Director at Hatch, where she oversaw project management development across 4,000+ projects in 70 countries - to unpack the most misunderstood concept in major project delivery: integra...

Most project teams don’t fail because they lack a plan, they fail because they believe it. In this episode, Orion sits down with Travis Arlitt, Senior Planning & Field Execution Specialist and co-founder of Day One Model, to unpack a fundamental gap in capital project delivery: the disconnect between planned schedules and field reality. With over 25 years of experience across global megaprojec...

Capital projects generate enormous amounts of data, yet many important project decisions are still made without timely access to the information teams need. When plans inevitably break and conditions change, leaders often lack the transparency required to respond quickly and confidently. The issue is not a lack of data, but a gap between the systems collecting information and the tools teams use t...

What does it really take to staff, structure, and control multi-billion-dollar programs? Ahmed AbdelSalam shares hard-earned lessons on resource planning, building high-impact PMOs, and how AI is reshaping project controls. In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Ahmed AbdelSalam, a senior PMO and project controls leader who has delivered multi-billion-dollar programs ac...

Risk isn’t a scary “extra” - it’s the reason projects succeed or spiral. ⚠️ Kim Essendrup, co-host of Project Management Happy Hour and founder of RAIDLOG.com , joins Orion for a practical Risk 101 breakdown - and how RAID logs help teams stay proactive instead of reactive. In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Kim Essendrup - co-host of the widely followed Project Man...

What if your 3D model could predict schedule risk, expose cost blind spots, and align everyone—from the field to the boardroom? 🧩 BIM and digital-delivery expert Omar Habib joins Orion to break down how 4D, 5D, and data-driven storytelling are transforming billion-dollar projects. 🧾 Episode Summary In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Omar Habib - Co-Founder & C...

Why do so many billion-dollar projects fail—and how can leaders make better decisions before it’s too late? 🧭 Global mega-project executive Akin Oni joins Orion to unpack decision-making, people, risk, and leadership at the highest stakes. 🧾 Episode Summary In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Akin Oni—global mega-project executive, CEO & Managing Partner of FEC...

🌐 Episode Short Description Why do so many billion-dollar projects go off the rails—and what can you do before execution to prevent it? 🧭 Front-end planning expert Roger Farish joins Orion to unpack FEL, stage-gates, risk, and governance—and why the biggest influence on a project’s success happens long before you break ground. 🧾 Episode Summary In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orio...

What if finishing a billion-dollar project on time and on budget is actually a choice? 📦 Global AWP pioneer Geoff Ryan joins Orion to break down Advanced Work Packaging, data center megaprojects, and the future of construction productivity. In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion sits down with Geoff Ryan—worldwide authority on Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), founder of Insight-AWP, an...

What does it take to build one of the world’s largest oil & gas greenfields? ⛽️ Project Controls leader Tarun Gohel takes us behind the scenes of the $20B West Qurna 2 Project, a massive upstream program spanning Iraq, Dubai, South Korea, Italy, and beyond. In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion speaks with Tarun Gohel—a project controls and planning leader whose career spans Ind...

What does it take to keep billion-dollar projects running on the latest version?  Document Control expert Leanne Allgaier joins Orion Matthews to unpack how great document management saves time, money, and even lives across the world’s largest industrial projects. In this episode of The Major Project Podcast, Orion Matthews sits down with Leanne Allgaier—a veteran document control leader who’s man...