UAE ambassador to France Hend Al Otaiba presents credentials in Paris

As country's envoy, she joins select group of senior Emirati women diplomats

Hend Al Otaiba presents her credentials to French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Photo: @UAEEmbassyParis

Hend Al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to France, on Thursday presented her credentials to French President Emmanuel Macron.

The ceremony took place at the Elysee Palace in the French capital of Paris.

A fluent French speaker and a strategic communications expert, Ms Al Otaiba has spent her career promoting the UAE to the wider world through arts and culture as well as through public relations and diplomacy.

In her most recent role, she created and led the first strategic communications department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation.

The department is responsible for promoting the country’s foreign policies and interests through both the international media and the UAE's diplomatic missions.

Before that, Ms Al Otaiba worked as director of communications at Abu Dhabi Media and also alongside Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, as an adviser on issues of international diplomacy until 2019.

As the UAE envoy to France, Ms Al Otaiba joins a select group of senior Emirati women diplomats, including Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s first woman permanent representative to the UN, and Reem Al Hashimy, director general of the Expo and Minister of State for International Co-operation.

More than half of the staff at the foreign ministry and 40 per cent of UAE diplomats are women, an achievement acknowledged by the UN in its 2021 Women in Diplomacy Index, which praised the UAE for the progress it has made in advancing women's participation in diplomacy.