RIYADH — Dr. Iman Bint Habas Al-Mutairi expressed her great appreciation and gratitude to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman for the royal trust reposed in her by appointing her as deputy minister of commerce in excellent rank. She also thanked Minister of Commerce Majed Al-Qasabi for the support while reaffirming her resolve to work hard to achieve the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030. The King appointed her as deputy minister of commerce in a royal decree issued early on Monday. Dr. Al-Mutairi had been serving as assistant minister of commerce since December 2019. She also served as advisor to minister of social affairs (2015), and minister of commerce and investment (2017). Earlier, the Council of Ministers had approved assigning her to work as CEO of the National Competitiveness Center. Dr. Al-Mutairi served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the erstwhile Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) and director of the Strategic Transformation Office at SAGIA. She also served as general supervisor of the Committee for Improving the Performance of Private Sector Businesses (Tayseer) and as director of the Human Capacity Development Program, one of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 programs. Among her remarkable contributions include establishing an operating model for Tayseer; making preparations for the establishment of the National Competitiveness Center, one of the National Transformation Program 2020 initiatives, and overseeing all reforms aimed at improving the business environment in the Kingdom with more than 50 governmental entities and international organizations, such as the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, in addition to supervising the establishment of the Saudi Business Center. Al-Mutairi contributed immensely to developing the investment strategy at SAGIA and supervised the implementation of the National Transformation Program initiatives in line with the Vision 2030. She also played a big role in establishing the Office of the Human Capacity Development Program, and identifying initiatives and projects aimed at developing a reform program for the education and training system and human capacity development in the Kingdom. Born in 1970, Al-Mutairi developed a magic formula between her specialization in chemistry and the chemistry of excelling in the scientific, professional, leadership and administrative skills. She combined chemistry as a researcher, teaching as an academic, and responsibility as deputy minister of commerce. Her scientific specialization in chemistry was not an obstacle for her in scaling ladders of higher positions in administrative fields. She has a brilliant track record in wide ranging areas such as preventive medicine, genetics, health and social services, human resource management, economics and business. When she gave up her academic seat at the age of 23, she dreamed of a professorship in genetics, after which she set off to leadership positions. Al-Mutairi worked as a teaching assistant at King Faisal University (1993-1994) and University of Bristol (1994-1997), assistant professor of genetics at Harvard University (1998-2000), and scientific research advisor at the Perkin Murr Company for Life Sciences in the United States of America (2000 2002). She served as preventive medicine consultant (2003-2006); head of Medical Relations Department; acting director of Medical Technical Support Services and head of Quality and Patient Safety (2007-2010); head of Manpower Planning and Analytics Department (2010-2011), and director of Leadership Transformation Project in Saudi Aramco's Accelerated Strategic Transformation Program (2011-2012). She also served as member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal University for Women in Bahrain (2013).
