Saudi Arabia’s FII confab takes off with Day Zero soft launch

At the palatial Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter on Monday, Saudi Arabia’s ninth Future Investment Initiative conference kicked off with a soft launch billed as Day Zero.

Organizers of the annual event, underwritten by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, set the first day aside for what they described as “exclusive, invitation-only conclaves, convening the world’s foremost investors, CEOs, and policymakers for unscripted dialogue.”

On Tuesday, doors open at the neighboring King Abdulaziz International Convention Center, where more than 6,000 registrants will spend three days networking between speeches by government leaders and corporate titans.

Headliners at the conference include Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Ruth Porat, of Alphabet and Google, Jane Fraser of Citi, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone and Masayoshi Son of SoftBank.

Saudi leaders on the schedule include PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Amin H. Nasser, President and CEO of Aramco. As in previous years, whether and when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will speak is the conference’s biggest guessing game.

Among political figures coming from abroad are Syria’s new President, Ahmed Al-Sharaa; China’s Vice President Han Zheng; Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan; Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, Rachel Reeves, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike.