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Since coming to power in 2013, the Qatari emir has overseen a centralisation of power in the Diwan Emiri, part of an effort to move away from the style of previous governments.  Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani is a less impulsive ruler than his father. 

UAE state minister for foreign affairs Sheikh Shakhbut Bin Nahyan Al-Nahyan has been increasingly active on the African continent, since his four-year stint as ambassador to Saudi Arabia ended in 2021.

Qatar's Interior minister and Lekhwiya commander Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani has been raising his profile on the regional stage.

National security advisor, Supreme Defence Council secretary-general and Royal Guard commander Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa was promoted from major general to the rank of lieutenant general in an order by his father King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa on 30 April.

In the late March round of appointments Sheikh Hazza lost his long-held position as Abu Dhabi Executive Council (ADEC) deputy chairman but gained the position of deputy ruler. It is not clear what powers or duties this new role will have and some analysts suspect it will be largely ceremonial.

Labelled by the British press as a ‘billionaire banker’, Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani was born in April 1982 into a family that accrued almost unimaginable wealth, as the Qatari economy grew from an all but impoverished desert peninsula into a global-scale gas giant. His father, former prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani (HBJ), played an instrumental role in that process.

Zayed Bin Hamdan graduated from Sandhurst in 2009 and served in the UAE Presidential Guard. His formal title is ruler’s representative in the Western region.

There is rising speculation about the potential for Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (MBZ)’s eldest son, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, to fill the role of UAE crown prince. Khalid cut his administrative teeth in the security sector and since 2021 has played a leading role in running the Abu Dhabi government.

Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)’s Vision 2030 policies have increasingly sought to make the kingdom a hub for global sporting events, its soft power projection extending through the ownership of football and other sporting assets and, in the process, providing unprecedented entertainment for the Saudi population.

A list of the 24 member Bahraini cabinet, appointed 22 November 2022.

Iraq’s newly-appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani is a veteran of the post-Saddam Hussein political scene. He was governor of Maysan province in 2009-10 and then served as human rights minister in Nouri Al-Maliki’s administration, from December 2010 to October 2014.

A list of the 22 members of Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani's cabinet, covering agriculture, communications, culture, defence, education, electricity, finance, foreign affairs, health, higher education and scientific research, industry and minerals, interior, justice, labour and social affairs, migration and displacement, oil, planning, trade, transport, water resources, and youth and sports.

Saudi Arabia’s new defence minister has steadily gathered influence as the Bin Salman clan has consolidated its power across the commanding heights of the kingdom’s politics and economy. GSN profiles Prince Khalid Bin Salman’s rise through a military career to become ambassador to Washington and then deputy defence minister – with an important role in the Yemen conflict – before replacing his brother, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, in the top defence job

Gulf States Newsletter (GSN) provides profiles of the children of Saudi Arabia's King Salman Bin Abdelaziz, including Crown Prince and prime minister Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), his brothers Khalid and Turki, his half-brothers Fahd, Sultan, Ahmed, Abdelaziz, Faisal and Saud and his half-sister Hessa.

Along with the Abu Dhabi leadership’s other ‘Sheikha Fatima brothers’ (President Mohammed Bin Zayed and sheikhs Hamdan, Hazza, Tahnoun and Abdullah), Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan has been groomed for power as a son of UAE founding president Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan and Sheikha Fatima Bin Mubarak Al-Ketbi.