Deemah AlYahya

Deemah AlYahya has been appointed as a member of the High-Level Panel on Freedom of Transit for Landlocked Developing Countries by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, representing the Arab region. She is the founding Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) and the first Saudi woman to hold the secretariat of an international organization. She serves in her second term as Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) and brings extensive experience in international cooperation, multilateral diplomacy, policymaking, and promoting cross-border investment and development.

AlYahya obtained her bachelor's degree in computer science and information systems from King Saud University in Riyadh, class of 2002. She graduated in 2017 from the INSEAD business school senior executive programs after partaking in the International Directors Program, Leading Digital Transformation & Innovation in the Age of Disruption, and business development & Financial Acumen. She also completed various programs at Harvard Business School including "Leading & Building a Culture of Innovation and Disruptive Innovation" and "Strategies for a Successful Enterprise".

Career history

• Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization (2021–present)
• Founder and CEO of Women Spark (Saudi Arabia's first women's angel investment network)
• CEO of the National Digital Transformation Unit at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia
• Chief Innovation Officer at the Misk Foundation
• Executive Director of Developer Experience and Digital Innovation at Microsoft (2013–onward); first Saudi woman in a leadership role at Microsoft
• E-services director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia
• Software engineer at Samba Financial Institution and the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul)

AlYahya has launched several impact-driven initiatives, such as Saudi Codes, an initiative to help people learn how to use code, reaching over 1.2 million participants. In 2018, AlYahya was recognized with the "Digital CEO of the Year" award by Entrepreneur Middle East magazine. In March 2026, she received the Technology Diplomacy Award at The Montgomery Summit — recognition of her work building a new institution from the ground up in one of the most complex arenas in global governance.

What Deemah AlYahya could bring to the UN High-Level Panel on Freedom of Transit: With her two decades of experience building digital infrastructure, leading digital transformation at scale, and championing cross-border cooperation through the DCO, AlYahya is uniquely positioned to bring a modern, technology-enabled perspective to the panel's work on landlocked developing countries' transit challenges. Her expertise in digital customs systems, international cooperation frameworks, and capacity-building for emerging economies—evidenced by her role in training 1.2 million people in digital skills—could directly inform practical recommendations to strengthen transit systems and improve access to global markets for the world's 32 landlocked nations.