HRH Ambassador Reema Bandar Al-Saud was appointed Ambassador to the United States on February 23, 2019 by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz. She is the first woman in the country’s history to hold the position of Ambassador. She presented her credentials to President Donald Trump on July 8, 2019. From 1983 to 2005, Princess Reema lived in Washington, D.C., while her father, Prince Bandar, served as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States.
She attended George Washington University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Museum Studies. Princess Reema returned to Saudi Arabia, where she focused on private sector initiatives and women’s empowerment in the Kingdom. In 2000, she co-founded the Yabreen Club, a women’s sports club. From 2007 to 2015, Princess Reema served as CEO of Alfa International Limited – Harvey Nichols Riyadh, a multi-brand luxury retailer, where she collaborated with leading female recruitment agency, Glowork, to commission a study on women’s barriers to the workplace, which set the tone for female inclusion in retail, and resulted in the opening of the first on-premise nursery in a retail store, enabling more women to work while caring for children. In 2013, she founded Alf Khair, a social enterprise that aims to raise the professional capital of Saudi women through an approach developed to enable financial self-sufficiency. In 2016, Princess Reema left the private sector to begin a career in public service as Vice President of Women’s Affairs at the Saudi General Sports Authority, where she developed policies and programs that benefited women and children across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Following a successful year, she was promoted to Deputy for Planning and Development in January 2018. In October 2018, she was also appointed President of the Mass Participation Federation, making her the first woman to lead a multi-sport federation in the Kingdom, a position she held until her appointment as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States.
Princess Reema is excited to take her leadership role to the global stage as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States. As part of her philanthropic work, Princess Reema became a founding member of the Zahra Breast Cancer Awareness Association in 2007, which set a Guinness World Record by forming the world’s largest human awareness ribbon at Princess Noura University in Riyadh in 2015.
Princess Reema has served as a member of the World Bank’s Advisory Board for the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative since 2017. She has been a member of the Saudi Olympic Committee since 2017, and a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Women in Sports Initiative. Commission since 2018.
In 2014, Fast Company honored Princess Reema as a Creative Person of the Year for “Inviting Women into the Workplace.” Foreign Policy recognized her as a leading global thinker the same year, placing her high in the “Mogul” category. She appeared on the Forbes lists of the 200 Most Powerful Arab Women and the Most Powerful Arab Woman in Saudi Arabia in 2014.
