Jaidah, Ali Mohammed (علي محمد الجيدة)

Ali Mohammed Jaidah (September 1941 - present; علي محمد الجيدة), also Latinized as Ali al-Jaidah, Ali Jaïdah, Ali Jida, and Ali Al-Jeeda, is a Qatari oil executive and diplomat who served as the Director General of the Qatar General Petroleum Corporation, the predecessor to today's QatarEnergy, during a period when the country's oil production boomed in the early-mid 1970s. He was born in Doha, Qatar in 1941 to a prominent family of merchants and attended university in Britain, earning a bachelor's and master's degree at the University of London in 1965 and 1966, respectively. He then worked in the Petroleum Affairs Department of the Ministry of Financial and Petroleum in Qatar, quickly becoming the director of the department. In 1976, he represented Qatar at the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries and then became the organization's Secretary General in 1977 - 1978. Afterwards, with Qatar having largely nationalized the oil industry in the meantime, Jaidah returned public service as the managing director of Qatar Petroleum (Qatar General Petroleum Corporation, now QatarEnergy), a post he held until 1985. Jaidah worked in the private sector between 1986 and 1992, after which he was named the Qatari Ambassador to the United Kingdom, a post he held until 2000. He also operated the Jaidah Motors and Trading Company and other family businesses in Doha with his brother Kassem (also as Jassim) which were consolidated into J and A Jaidah Holdings in the early 2000s.