Greening Riyadh: Inside Saudi Arabia’s $10 Billion Urban Oasis

Episode Overview

Most people hear “billion-dollar project” and picture steel and concrete. Episode 002 is about planting trees: 7.5 million of them, across an entire desert capital. Jovita Stander ran project controls on Green Riyadh, the Vision 2030 megaprogram turning Riyadh into an urban oasis, and she walks Orion through the whole machine: the KPIs behind the trees, the 1,300 km treated-wastewater irrigation network, the Primavera P6 ↔ ArcGIS backbone that keeps a city-wide scope honest, and the leadership it takes to run the numbers when you’re the only woman in the boardroom.

Episode Timeline

The conversation as it unfolded: eight chapters across 71 minutes, following the show’s four-act arc: intro, the project, advice, wrap-up. The strip maps each chapter’s share of the runtime; timestamps are approximate. Click any block to jump to its chapter.

Who carried the mic

The Guest · Jovita Stander

Jovita Stander

Project Controls Director, Knight Frank · formerly Project Controls Director, Green Riyadh

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Project ControlsProgram ReportingP6 × GISMegaproject LeadershipGlobal Career

Jovita is a South African project-controls leader whose career has run through six countries and six sectors: urban forestation, mixed-use high-rise, transportation and rail infrastructure, power, oil & gas export terminals, and mining, with stops in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil and five years in the United States. The road there is its own story: nearly eight years leading IT projects for Vodacom, a Centurion coffee shop she owned and ran, then a decade on African megaprojects: planner roles on Mozambique’s Matola coal export terminal and Benga CHPP, then operations manager at South Africa’s ~$9B Medupi power station, before five years with WSP in the US, rising from a ~$2B grid-reliability program in Maine to Vice President, Project Controls in Houston. She was sitting at home in the Houston area in 2023 when a call came out of the blue: Green Riyadh needed a project controls director. She researched the program, took the job, and (with Egis) led a 24-person controls team at the reporting hub of a $10–11 billion urban-afforestation megaprogram. Since late 2024 she has been Director of Project Controls with Knight Frank, the global real-estate consultancy, based in Riyadh.

“I’m really a problem solver. I bring order to chaos. And I think project controls does a lot of that: it brings order to chaos.”Jovita Stander · on the show, ~4:45

Career journey

The Host · Orion Matthews

Orion Matthews

Founder, Queryon · Host, The Major Project Podcast · PMO data & analytics

Eugene, Oregon, United States

Project Controls ReportingPMO Data AnalyticsCapital PortfoliosAI in ProjectsPower BI

Orion is an award-winning programmer, entrepreneur and technology executive who has spent the last decade in the engine room of major capital projects. He founded Queryon in Washington, D.C. in 2015 with a focus on data analytics and software for the construction industry, starting with bellwether client BP, whose project-controls solutions his team deployed globally, from the North Sea to Azerbaijan to Houston. Today he's a recognized expert in PMO data analytics and project-controls reporting, serving billion-dollar portfolios for owners including BP, Santos, Balfour Beatty and Turner & Townsend, a regular speaker at major industry conferences on AI and analytics in capital projects, and the host of this show.

Vision 2030 & the Path to Riyadh

Before the trees, the why. Green Riyadh is one project inside Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 (the 2016 initiative to diversify the economy away from oil), and Jovita opens with the goals the greenery actually serves: life expectancy up from 74 to 80, weekly exercise up from 13% to 40% of the population, three Saudi cities in the global top 100, and more Saudi women in the workforce. Then Orion rewinds to the guest herself: a South African “order-to-chaos” problem solver whose project-controls career has circled the globe.

“Part of Vision 2030, which is obviously close to my heart, is to increase the representation of Saudi women in the workforce.”Jovita Stander · ~2:00

1. Vision 2030, unpacked: launched in 2016 by the Crown Prince to diversify the economy. Green Riyadh is one of its many projects. ~0:48
2. The health targets behind a tree-planting program: life expectancy 74 → 80, weekly exercise 13% → 40%, three cities in the world’s top 100. ~1:30
3. Six countries, six sectors: South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, the US, Saudi Arabia; forestation, high-rise, rail, power, export terminals, mining. ~3:15
4. The self-portrait: a problem solver who brings order to chaos, loves that projects end: “a gypsy at heart.” ~4:45

Anatomy of a $10B Urban Forest

Jovita builds the case bottom-up, the way a project controller would: city first, program second. Riyadh’s population (about 7 million in 2022) is forecast to hit 9.6 million by 2030, and the growth is exactly why the greening works: 100% of the irrigation comes from treated sewage effluent, so more residents literally means more water for trees. Launched in March 2019, Green Riyadh spans neighborhoods, parks, mosques, roads, schools and the wadis, with KPIs that go far beyond a tree count.

1. The KPIs behind the trees: drop the city’s temperature 1–2°C, cut CO₂ 3–6%, absorb the winter rains, lift the look of a city of browns and beiges. ~12:30
2. Rain in the desert: “When it rains, people are so happy they go out of the offices and film the rain. I just find that beautiful.” ~13:20
3. Stormwater as scope: capture the November–January runoff, reuse it for irrigation, prevent the floods. ~13:45
4. The livability standard: every neighborhood within 300 metres of a green space, to pull people outdoors. ~15:05
5. Orion plays it back as three scopes: canopy, stormwater, parks & public space. Jovita confirms, and stacks the co-benefits. 15:22

“The natural landscape is tones of browns and light beige… the moment you see something green, it’s nice on the senses. It probably lifts your mood, at least it lifts mine.”Jovita Stander · ~14:30

A Program, Not a Project

The origin story and the org chart. Jovita was at home near Houston in 2023 when the call came out of the blue; by the time she landed, the budget stood, in her recollection, between $10 and $11 billion US. What she found wasn’t one project but a program of typologies: linear road corridors, whole neighborhoods, and parks built from scratch: “smart parks” with retail, walking routes, digital connectivity, metro links and, in some cases, a stadium inside the park.

“They talk about the Green Riyadh project, but in actual fact the project is a program… And the park is not just a park, it’s almost like a smart park. Some of the parks actually have a stadium.”Jovita Stander · ~18:30

1. The call: “I was actually sitting in my house in Katy, Houston, Texas, when I got a call out of the blue… I did a little bit of research, and I ended up here.” ~17:05
2. Why typologies make it a program: roads are linear, neighborhoods are many, parks start from scratch, and not everything can start at once. ~18:00
3. Her hot take: “Every project controls team should have the graphic design under them. I’m just going to say that.” ~22:30
4. Orion raises Storytelling with Data: form over function fails; the story is what gets decisions made. Jovita: one page, one infographic, everybody understands. 22:43
5. Permits in Saudi Arabia are strict (no excavation without an excavation permit), so permitting milestones live on the schedule even though the stakeholder team owns them. ~24:30

Where the Schedule Meets the Map

The most technical stretch of the episode, and the one Orion came for. Green Riyadh runs on two databases (Primavera P6 for the schedule, ArcGIS for the city), and they’re joined by a shared coding system: every mosque, road segment and wadi parcel that gets a tree, shrub or ground cover carries a location code that lives in both systems, with costs attached. Change the scope on the map, and it reconciles in the schedule; update progress in P6, and it flows back to GIS.

“Each of those little assets had a code, and those codes would tie back into P6… so we could always relate back; it doesn’t matter which database you were using.”Jovita Stander · ~27:30

1. The tree management office (alongside facility, construction and project management offices) owns the species strategy, backed by a long-standing local specialist firm with landscape engineers and GIS staff. ~29:30
2. The palette: about 72 species native to the region (heat-resistant, low-water), “a lot of acacias, which are thorn trees; we get them a lot in South Africa… of course palm trees.” ~30:20
3. The canopy trade: swap species (still native) and you can hit the same canopy-cover KPI with fewer trees: “instead of 7.5 million, it could be seven.” The KPI is shade, not the tree count. ~31:20
4. At handover, every green asset maps back to GIS: the city gets a living inventory, not just an as-built. ~27:50

Leading in a Sea of Men

The chapter that gives the episode its heart. For the first time in her career, Jovita led an all-male team, and was the only senior woman on the program, presenting monthly to His Excellency the chairman. Some team members were open; others circumvented or ignored her. Her answer wasn’t to assert rank. It was kindness with a spine: work alongside the team through the all-nighters, feed them, recognize good work publicly, and put her foot down, with respect, when the debate was done.

“Standing in the boardroom, it was a sea of men in front of me… This really was the first time in my life that there was no other female in the boardroom.”Jovita Stander · ~33:00

1. Last one out: “I would always be the last one going home. I would never leave before them and the work was finished.” ~36:10
2. The sushi story: working through the night, dinner’s on her: “The one guy said, ‘I want sushi.’ I said, order it, no problem… They did it once, and they never ordered sushi again.” ~36:30
3. Recognition as leadership currency: “A lot of them were not used to it… I think that buys you as a leader a lot of miles, and give the credit; don’t take it for yourself.” ~38:20
4. Empathy for the other side of the table: it may have been the first time some of them reported to a woman: “I had to take that into consideration as well.” ~35:30

High-Stakes Rooms

How do you walk into a monthly presentation to the program’s chairman (a room full of very senior people) and hold the floor? Jovita’s system is disarmingly analog: a printed deck covered in color-coded Post-it notes, data she already knows cold, a capable deputy on WhatsApp standby outside the room, and rehearsal out loud at home. And when a question lands that she can’t answer: say so, promise the follow-up, deliver it.

“I don’t have the answer for you now, Your Excellency, but I will get it to you as soon as we finish the meeting… I think you lose more credibility by trying to fudge it.”Jovita Stander · ~41:20

1. The opening joke that isn’t the advice: “First of all, fake it till you make it. No, I’m just joking.” The real tip follows immediately: over-prepare. ~39:25
2. The WhatsApp lifeline: her project control manager on standby outside the room. Sometimes the chairman wanted the number before the meeting ended, and got it. ~42:10
3. Orion’s riff: people rarely lie in project reporting. They weave, dodge and obfuscate, and it erodes credibility fast. “Being able to tell people what they don’t want to hear is a real skill.” 42:42

The Basics Before the Dashboards

Orion asks how she QCs data she suspects is wrong, and Jovita delivers the episode’s thesis: it isn’t the tooling, it’s the basics. On Green Riyadh, every department reported to a different cutoff date until she spent two months of explaining, convincing and reinforcement to land a single project calendar. From there: sense-check the week-over-week movement, go back to the source when your gut nags, and make sure a “golden thread” runs from weekly reports into the monthly, quarterly and annual story.

“You need to start with the basics. And the basics is cutoff dates, so that everybody reports to the same cutoff date.”Jovita Stander · ~45:45

1. Orion’s analogy: learning to run isn’t about the shoe: “the basics are hard,” and everyone assumes project controls is advanced tooling and magic. 49:37
2. Why AI waits: “Garbage in, garbage out… these wonderful tools will not help the decision makers make good decisions” if the inputs and processes underneath are wrong. ~50:50
3. Routine as the discipline: “Project controls is all about routine: every month, in those 30 days, something has got to happen at certain points, and then next month you repeat it.” ~52:00
4. The hub: a big project isn’t chaotic because people are lost: it’s moving parts everywhere, and “project controls is the hub in getting all this information together.” ~53:10
5. Then, and only then: PMIS, dashboards, AI, “the goal is to be more efficient and provide accurate data in a very short amount of time.” ~54:00

Careers, Women & Mentors

The advice block runs long and earns it. For students eyeing the field: “go for it”, then a map of the career streams inside project controls, vertical mastery versus horizontal range. For women entering a male-dominated industry: the field is changing, your leadership style is an asset, and a thick skin is part of the kit. And for everyone, the closer: get yourself a mentor. She still does, decades in.

“You can become the subject-matter expert, the depths of knowledge in P6, or you can move horizontally into risk, cost, the commercial side, and then go up… It really gives you a lot of opportunity.”Jovita Stander · ~56:30

1. The short answer: “Go for it”, then the streams: scheduler, cost, risk, document control, commercial, reporting. ~55:15
2. Orion’s conductor question: schedulers master a rigid, mathematical craft. How do you learn the convening skill that gets the band playing to one downbeat? 59:30
3. Her answer: personality. The brilliant risk manager who lives for risk probably shouldn’t run the hub: “ask yourself: do I want many things at once, or one thing deep? And re-ask every five years.” ~1:02:30
4. On thick skin: “You never need to apologize for being a woman in this field… but you cannot be easily offended.” A couple of times she “lost it a little bit”, and that sent a message too. ~1:06:20
5. The benediction: “I’ve been very, very blessed in this career. If I had a choice, I would do it all over again.” ~1:07:15
6. Wrap-up: find her on LinkedIn (“I’m probably the only one”), and Orion teases the career chart and links below the video. 1:07:51

The Big Ideas

Three ideas carry the episode. Sketched here the way a program war room would whiteboard them.

Bookshelf & Links

Everything recommended or referenced in the episode, plus where to find the people, the program and the show.

Quote Bank

The best on-the-record lines, gathered in one filterable place. “Highlight” marks the lines most worth scrubbing back for; quotes are lightly condensed and timestamps are approximate.