Kate Rudd, the British Consul General in Jeddah, started her diplomatic career as head of the UK Trade and Investment delegation to Iraq and the commercial basis of her position has only deepened as the delegation's representative to OIC and IDBIT is not so long ago that the prospect of a senior diplomat in Saudi Arabia being female would have seemed completely out of the question. It is a sign of how much things have changed here in the past ten years that there have been two female American Consuls General, and Kate Rudd is now the second female British Consul General in Jeddah. Rudd is from the historical port city of Plymouth in the south-west of England and she joined the British Foreign Office in 2003. While studying literature at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, she had taken up the option of being an exchange student at a Chinese university in Hong Kong and it was here that the seeds of her future career were planted. “I met international students who had aspirations to join the United Nations, representing their own countries and traveling, and it really made me realize what was possible and what was out there. One of the things they talked about was working on the Japan exchange and the teaching programs so I developed more of an international outlook on what I might like to do in the future,” she explained. After graduating with a BA in English Literature, Rudd went to Japan and taught English for three years. Once again, she met young people who had aspirations to represent their own countries or work with the UN. “That was the time when I really started getting interested in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO),” said Rudd, “and I kept my eye on that when I came back to the UK. I briefly worked for the Japanese Embassy in London and then I worked for KPMG, one of the four big international business advisory firms, for three and a half years. I very much enjoyed working there, but I wanted to do something broader and I also wanted to have the international aspect back in my working life.” Armed with an MA in International Business, which she had studied for part-time while working at KPMG, Rudd then joined the Foreign Office. After three years based in London, she was thrown in at the deep end with her first overseas posting: she was sent as the head of the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) delegation to Baghdad for a year from 2006-2007. “That was the year when the violence increased. It was also the year when Saddam Hussein was tried, and I was at the opening day of his trial for the Anfal Campaign when he ordered the gassing of the Kurds in Northern Iraq. It was very interesting seeing him in the court room, clearly a man who still had a lot of presence and you could imagine the kind of responses he could get from people around him, and you got a sense of the kind of person that he was,” she said. “I worked in Iraq for a year and the highlights were things like taking the Iraqi Minister of Electricity to Dubai to meet British companies. At that time, when you talked business with the Iraqi government, they wanted to buy turbines and power stations and quite big things, so it was very interesting to be able to do that.” The British Embassy was in the middle of Baghdad with conflict surrounding it. “Mortars would land nearby, or even in our compound,” remembers Rudd. “In fact when Tony Blair came to Baghdad for talks, he briefly called in at the Embassy and literally five minutes before he arrived, a mortar landed in our compound – meters away from the room in which we had assembled to meet him. And when a mortar lands it makes a really loud sort of dull thud and it makes everything vibrate. So we were certainly very aware of what was going on around us.” Despite the dangers, Rudd felt that it was important to be there. “I also felt that if you are going to join the FCO and be a diplomat, then you mustn't shy away from the areas where history is being made. I was doing a UKTI role, and you can't have political stability without economic stability – the two are inexorably intertwined, and so I felt that it was very important to ensure that while the political discussions were going on to ensure that Iraq had a bright future, the economics and the trade and the investment and all those things were there as well to make sure that when everyone had finished negotiating, you had a stable basis on which Iraq could reconstruct itself. Iraq is an extremely wealthy country – and that is all in its favour for long term political and economic stability.” In her role as the head of UKTI in Jeddah, Rudd is the UK's representative to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and also to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), two very important Islamic international institutions that are headquartered here. “I also oversee our trade and industry work, and that is probably about 60 percent of what we do as a consulate overall,” Rudd explained. “Consular responsibility is very important as the Consul General, so I need to ensure that British nationals are aware of Saudi Arabia travel advice and the services that we can provide to them in case of difficulty or distress. This includes business people visiting the Kingdom, and the significant numbers of British Muslims who visit for Umrah and Haj. We estimate that on the basis of the Ministry of Haj figures, around 80 thousand British nationals visit the Kingdom for pilgrimage every year, so at any one time in the Kingdom, you have between two to four thousand British nationals performing their pilgrimage.” Rudd is keen to encourage all British expatriates in the Kingdom, as well as visitors, to register on the FCO ‘LOCATE' system. “It allows us to know where you are and who is with you, and you receive emails whenever our travel advice is updated. We have found that with the recent events in the MENA region, people have taken time to register on LOCATE, but we believe that there are many British nationals in Saudi Arabia who haven't done so yet, and we would very much encourage them to do so at this time. It is also a good idea for people who have an account to check it and make sure it is up to date and reflects their current situation.” Rudd has found that being a female diplomat in Saudi Arabia has distinct advantages: “I have found over the last three and a half years that if I make it clear who I am, and the job that I am doing, I can join my male counterparts...and I am able to be seated with them, to join them, and to discuss freely with them. As such, I am invited to male-only events in order to be able to do that, and I have not found any issues in conducting my business at all. I also find that actually it is advantageous to be a woman in this role here because I am also invited to women-only events, so I find that I can have a little more reach. If am invited into someone's house where the male head of the household is hosting a dinner for his business colleagues, I am able to join the men-only aspect of that and at some point, the host will usually take me to meet his wife and the female members of the household. So I feel that I have this very privileged position of being able to go into both areas,” she remarked. When asked what she enjoys about her job, Rudd visibly relaxes and her answer has no diplomatic caution attached to it. “So many things! This is the first time that I have been a Consul General and it is a fantastic job because of the breadth of the portfolio. I get the privilege of doing something that I think helps make a little difference, and in a country that I wouldn't be able to visit on a tourist visa, and I feel that that is a very privileged position to be in. One of the things that I like doing in my role is getting to know Saudis, and getting to know the Jedawis here, because it is so important to understand the culture that you are in and to be able to make the relationships that allow you to do business here,” she said. “And of course understanding the make-up of the expat community, and what they add, particularly to the economy in Saudi Arabia. It is all absolutely fascinating. I always think that people make places, and in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf in particular, we all know that relationships are all-important, so here of all places it is very important to know the people around you. And that makes this job very pleasurable indeed.” The LOCATE system is explained in more detail at the following web address: www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/staying
