Dr Waddah was born and brought up in Dubai, UAE but spent some years of study in two separate periods in the UK. He is a UAE national. He graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering from the UK Waddah is considered one of the authorities on Environment/Sustainability, Health and Safety as well as Governance and Leadership and High Reliability Organizations (HROs). He is the Hon Chairman for the Energy Institute – Middle East and is also the Chairman of the Platform for Connected Leadership (PCL), Dubai, UAE.
He is currently appointed as the Senior Director for Logistics and Marine Assurance and served in the very recent past as Senior Director for Sustainability, Operational and Business Excellence for the ENOC Group in Dubai, UAE.
Waddah holds several academic and vocational qualifications including two PG Diplomas an MSc in Environmental Sciences, an Executive MBA and a Doctorate from the University of Bradford in Governance and Leadership. He has received several awards in his career, most notably, the Rashid Prize for Scholarship Excellence in 2007 (Dubai), and the IEMA Sustainability Leader of the Year (UK) in 2019. He delivers various lectures in technical, on learning and in leadership and governance at universities, conferences and within organizations. He is a visiting lecturer on the MSc program at the Universiti of Technologi Petronas (UTP) in Malaysia and appointed as an external examiner for PhD defense exams at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) in India.
He is an advisor on the Herriot Watt University’s Industry Advisory Committee and the EHS Advisory Committee for the Abu Dhabi University. He serves on several international boards (OCIMF, Energy Institute etc.) and served as Vice Chairman of Dubai Carbon (DCCE PJSC) from 2010-2019; he had served as a Board Member of the not-for-profit Emirates Environment Group in the UAE for several years. He is also the senior advisor to the Board of the Clean Energy Business Council. He represents the UAE in the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 283 and is Chairman of the UAE National Committee for Occupational Health and Safety (ESMA). He is currently the Chairman, Professional Engineering Chapter, UAE Society of Engineers. He is a certified Director with the IoD and Board Directors Institute, GCC.
His publications include various research, practitioner journal and conference papers in addition to 9 internationally published books mainly is Safety Management, Operational Excellence, Reflective Learning, HSE Practitioner Executive Development, Governance and Leadership as well as theology. Two books are currently under development in Managing HSE in Major Projects and another on Creating and Sustaining Enterprise Value – A Guide for Board Directors and Executive Leadership.