Ebtisam Al-Wehaibi

Ebtisam Al-Wehaibi has been the general manager of intangible cultural heritage at the Ministry of Culture’s Heritage Commission since 2021.

She is responsible for overseeing and managing the

ICH sector across the Kingdom, and developing and promoting traditional and cultural value through research and documentation.

Al-Wehaibi has also been a UNESCO-certified facilitator since 2019, where she provides advisory services and capacity-building training. From 2020 to 2021, she was program director at the Misk Foundation’s Heritage Institute overseeing operations, project approvals and academic content.

Prior to that, Al-Wehaibi served as head of the ICH department at the Saudi Heritage Preservation Society from 2015. At the SHPS, she was the project manager of the inventory of ICH in the Kingdom, and was nominated for the Arab States Training of Trainers workshop under the 2003 UNESCO convention.

Al-Wehaibi joined Sultan bin Abdulaziz Humanitarian City in 2009 and occupied several positions until 2014. She worked as a team leader and the head of the translation section where she supervised and managed translators and interpreters.

Al-Wehaibi holds a bachelor’s degree in languages and translation from King Saud University, and a heritage resources management diploma from Sharjah Institute for Heritage.

Al-Wehaibi is Saudi

Arabia’s representative at the annual meetings of the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of ICH, and a participant in the General Assembly meetings of the international convention for the safeguarding of ICH at UNESCO’s headquarters.

During 2020 and 2021, she was a BigSib mentor for the nonprofit Project1932, which focuses on developing emerging leaders, or LittleSibs, in Saudi Arabia.