Dr. Basma Al Buhairan is the chief of events management at the Kingdom's National Events Center (NEC), with many years of experience in healthcare and leadership roles. In addition, she is a member at Eisenhower Fellowships, and selected adjunct assistant professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Going by her motto "The impossible is possible with perseverance, strong will, and determination," she is a hard worker who is quite capable of adapting to various challenges and working environments.
Dr. Al Buhairan was born in Al Jouf, in northern Saudi Arabia and grew up in the United States. From the get-go, her parents had been quite supportive in pushing the aspiring doctor to excel in school and, as she got older, she pursued a BSc in Clinical Laboratory Science at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and an MA in Molecular Biology at Brown University in the United States. Afterwards, she obtained an MPH and PhD in Public Health and Health Services Research at University of Sheffield, in the United Kingdom.
With over twenty years of work experience, in 1996, Dr. Al Buhairan started her career as an intern for the National Guard Health Affairs in Riyadh. She worked in the department for several years while taking on various positions, including the role as laboratory operations administrator. Ever since, in fact, she had worked for several other companies such as IBM as leader in both healthcare and university relations, King Abdullah University Hospital as deputy CEO, and more.
However, one of her proudest accomplishments perhaps was working as advisor at the Saudi Ministry of Investment, previously the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA). Before taking on the role, in October 2015, Dr. Al Buhairan had worked as managing director of the health care and life sciences sector before being promoted to executive director in January 2018, and advisor in December 2019.
Image Via Faces of Saudi, Arab News
Presently, Dr. Al Buhairan is the chief of events at NEC, which was established on March 10, 2020 with the aim to boost the Kingdom's events sector. This also includes Saudi seasons such as the highly popular Riyadh Season. Under her leadership, the events center has been working to establish necessary systems and environments for boosting the events sector, in addition to improving services provided by NEC.
By the near future, it hopes to ready the events sector in meeting the Kingdom's Vision 2030 goals, which seek to diversify the economy from the nation's over-reliance on oil
