Haneen Sayed has been appointed Minister of Social Affairs in February 2025.
She is an economic development professional with more than 25 years of experience at the World Bank where she led major reform programs, strategic engagements, business development projects and policy dialogue in economic and human development, spanning across the Middle East and North Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Europe. Since the financial collapse of the Lebanese economy, she led the World Bank response to establish a universal social protection system in Lebanon.

Her sectors of expertise span social protection, labor and jobs, education, poverty, and gender, in addition to fragility and conflict. 
She is co-author of the recently published books on the Syrian conflict “The Fallout of War” and “The Mobility of Displaced Syrians” as well as written on labor markets in Lebanon and Syria, the economic impact of the financial crisis in East Asia on human capital development. 

She has taught at various universities in New York City, as well as worked at Morgan Stanley, the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.

She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford and Columbia Universities, respectively.