Rawdha Al Otaiba
Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of the United Arab Emirates to London

Rawdha Al Otaiba has been the Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the UK since 2016. Prior to this position, she was the director of the American Affairs Department at MoFA for two years, where she was mandated to follow up the bilateral relations between the UAE and North & South American countries. She also worked at the Directorate of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for 5 years, where she represented the interests of the UAE at the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and tasked with coordinating all the affairs of the UAE hosting of (IRENA). She played an important role in representing the UAE as an active member state to (IRENA) and in strengthening the leading role of the UAE as part of the negotiating team that participated at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). She was also an active member of the team working on developing the UAE’s sustainability-related foreign and domestic policy.

In 2009, she joined the UAE task force for IRENA campaign, which led to the ultimate success of the UAE efforts to host (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi.

From 2003-2009, she worked at MOFA’s Department of American Affairs, where she took over responsibility for the US file and the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Rawdha Alotaiba graduated, from the UAE University, with a Bachelor Degree with honours in Political Science. She holds a Master Degree with Distinction in Strategic Studies and Public Diplomacy from the National Defense College.

In 2011, she received two awards: the Outstanding Service Award from His Highness the Minister of Foreign Affairs for her efforts with the IRENA team, and the Outstanding Leadership Thinking Award.