“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