Her Excellency Najla Al Awadhi is a former Member of Parliament of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and a distinguished media leader in the Middle East.

She is one of the first women in the history of the UAE to become an MP and also held the distinction as the youngest parliamentarian in the UAE.

During her four-year parliament term she served on the Education, Youth, Media and Culture Committee; as well as the Parliamentary Steering Committee established to develop a scheme to modernize the Parliament’s practices and overall effectiveness. She also previously served on the Foreign Affairs, Planning, Petroleum, Mineral Wealth, Agriculture and Fishery Committees.

Her Excellency Najla Al Awadhi is also the first Arab woman to hold a chief executive post in a state run media organization. With a particular focus on television, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of Television Channels at Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI). DMI is a Dubai Government media group which comprises a number of print, radio and TV channels including: Dubai TV, Sama Dubai TV, Dubai One TV, Dubai Sports TV, Dubai Racing TV, Noor Dubai TV, Noor Radio, Al Bayan (newspaper), Emarat Al Youm (newspaper), Emirates Business 24|7 (newspaper), and Masaar Printing Press. Her Excellency also previously served as the General Manger of Dubai One TV.

In 2011 Her Excellency Najla Al Awadhi was selected as one the ‘500 Most Influential Muslims’ by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in Jordan. Her Excellency is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders and also a Member of the Global Agenda Councils of the World Economic Forum. In addition, Her Excellency was acting chairperson for the regional board of Young Arab Leaders (YAL). Previously, she was also a Board Member with YAL’s UAE Chapter and headed its Education initiative that sought to provide higher education opportunities to talented UAE nationals. Her Excellency also sits on the Advisory Board of the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and is a Board Member of Dubai Women’s Establishment.

As part of Her Excellency’s passion to contribute to progressive Arab human development strategies and specifically capacity building for Arab women, she founded Najla Al Awadhi Consulting in 2010.

Since 2007 Her Excellency has been a regular columnist for local newspapers in the UAE. Her articles cover a range of socio-economic topics, including women’s rights, democracy, social justice, cultural perspectives, and education challenges throughout the Middle East.

Her Excellency Najla Al Awadhi is a graduate of Harvard University.

You can follow her on Twitter @NajlaAlAwadhi.