GLOBAL AMBITIONS

Saudi Arabia’s annual ‘Davos’ conference gets started in Riyadh

Some 7,000 movers and shakers pour into the kingdom for the Future Investment Initiative meeting that takes place at the opulent Ritz Carlton

Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

FII conference participants milling about between panel sessions (Getty Images)

Saudi Arabia is in full swing this week in its effort to wow Wall Street and the rest of the financial world as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hits the midpoint of his Vision 2030 plan to transform the economy.

Some 7,000 movers and shakers are pouring into Riyadh for the Future Investment Initiative conference that takes place annually at the opulent Ritz Carlton hotel and in the vast halls of the adjacent King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center.

Getting a jump on the confab in Riyadh, the developers of Saudi Arabia’s trillion-dollar-plus Neom project invited a select group of financiers, celebrities and influencers to a kickoff event over the weekend at Sindalah Island, five kilometers off the kingdom’s west coast, Bloomberg reports.

The Red Sea resort island, where an ecosystem is rising of super-luxury hotels, swank night clubs and an 86-berth yacht marina, hosted a beach party headlined by Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys. She sang to an audience that included actor Will Smith, tennis champ Rafael Nidal and former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

Back in the capital, FII opens on Tuesday with a bevy of investment bankers, hedge fund founders and corporate titans who have become regulars at the conference that was originally billed as “Davos in the Desert,” to highlight its aspirations for global influence.

Among the speakers slated for the main stage are Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock; Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreesen Horowitz, Jane Fraser, CEO of Citi; Ken Griffin, Founder and CEO of Citadel; Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange; Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google; and David Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group.
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The three-day event will be introduced by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is Governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Chairman of Aramco. Richard Attias, CEO of the FII Institute, said at a press conference that he expects some $28 billion in business deals to be announced during the course of the conference.