Hoda Al-Helaissi was nominated as one of the first 30 women to join the Saudi Shoura Council in 2013, and her membership in the council was renewed in the 2016 and 2020 sessions.
She is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee within the Shoura Council, where she was vice-chairperson from 2014 to 2021.
Prior to her role at the Shoura Council, Al-Helaissi was a lecturer at the College of Languages and Translation at King Saud University at the English and French departments from 1990 to 2012.
From 1999 to 2012, she was vice-chairperson of the College of Languages and Translation at King Saud University.
Since 2011, Al-Helaissi became a member of several government and private institutions, including of the Alliance Française d’Arabie Saoudite. Her school education was at the Lycée Français de Londres, now called Lycée Charles de Gaulles, London.
Al-Helaissi received a master’s degree in French Language and Literature from Colorado State University in 1987 and a bachelor’s degree in French language and literature with English subsidiary at Queen Mary College, the University of London, in 1982.
Al-Helaissi has won several international awards, including the Order of the Academic Palm Award by the French Government in 2009. She also won the Personality of the Future Program Award by the French Government in 2011. And in 2017, she won the Rawabi Prize for improving Saudi-British relations.
Recently, the French government awarded the “Knight of the Legion of Honor” award to Al-Helaissi in recognition of her contribution to strengthening relations between Saudi Arabia and France.
Al-Helaissi once told Arab News: “What we are today is because of our past, just as tomorrow will be the result of our today.”
