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Saudi Arabia on path to become MENA financial hub in 3 years: GEN President Ortmans

Saudi Arabia’s transformation from an “oil and gas powerhouse” to a startup hub for the MENA region is “well underway,”Jonathan Ortmans, President of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), said on Tuesday as the Kingdom played host to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC).

“The Saudi ecosystem has seen transformational growth and is expecting a tenfold investment boom over the next five years,” Ortmans told Al Arabiya English.

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The comments were made during the four-day long start-up-focused show that was held under the patronage of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Ecommerce is said to be the most attractive start-up when funding is concerned. At least 67 percent of the overall funding for Saudi-based startups in H1 2020 was ecommerce, a report published by the GEN showed.

Three years is how long Ortmans gives the Kingdom to become the financial hub of the Middle East.

Apart from ecommerce, fintech boasted 155 start-ups in 2020 compared to 10 in 2018. These start-ups raised over $168 million in the first half of 2021, a jump from $30 million in 2016, Ortmans clarified.

He credited the “young, talented and tech-savvy population” who is supported by “strong leadership from its government pursuing ambitious targets laid out in its Vision 2030.”

Lenskart, a leading eyewear retail chain, announced an expansion of their business by adding 100 outlets across the Kingdom by 2025, investing nearly $80 million (SAR 300 million) in the process.

Saudi Arabia’s market is “significantly larger than both UAE and Qatar. It is also the fastest growing,” said Sudhir Syal, Chief Business Officer of Lenskart in a statement to Al Arabiya English.

“We see an opportunity and are investing heavily in Saudi Arabia since it is the region’s largest and most advanced economy,” said Syal. He also clarified that Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca will see outlets in the first year of the company’s operation in the country.

As an established market leader in the fashion and optical industry, Syal shared a key component of starting a company – “hiring the right talent should be a priority because it really is a huge contributor to success.”

This falls within the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 goals of supporting local talent.

Lenskart’s Syal aims for more than 500 jobs created in five years across warehousing, logistics, retail, and technology sectors, according to the statement.

As for GEN President Ortmans, he hopes to see the Kingdom “embrace the potential of new space industries and astropreneurs. We are encouraged to see the formation of the Saudi Space Agency and see great potential for the Kingdom.”

The GEC is held yearly across various financial hubs. Ortmans said that Riyadh was picked for the 2022 edition because “Saudi Arabia has set a new pace to match as a breakthrough ecosystem and a hub for innovation, making it a natural fit…”

The event brought together investors, policy makers, and community leaders from around the world to help rebuild the pandemic-stricken global economy.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former Netflix CEO Marc Randolph were among 150 speakers, comprising entrepreneurs, investors, experts, and decision-makers from 180 countries addressing more than 100 discussion sessions during the GEC.

On the second day of the event, agreements to support entrepreneurship in the Kingdom are said to have reached more than $7.7 billion, according to various media reports. At least six new licenses and two MoUs were issued and signed at the event.

In 2020, Riyadh’s startup ecosystem was valued at $1 billion (USD), with total early-stage funding hitting $146 million (USD), according to the 2021 Global Startup Ecosystem Report.

The GEN, meanwhile, has onboarded Saudi Arabia onto a network of 85 national operations that run programs and build local entrepreneurship ecosystems.

A board of directors overseeing the induction will be headed by Marwan Jamal, a veteran in the entrepreneurial and start-up ecosystem.

Read more:

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Saudi Arabia deposits $5 billion in Egypt’s central bank: Report

Saudi Ministry of Commerce wins Compass Award at GEC for entrepreneurship efforts

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Almarai signs multiple agreements to localize jobs through training and recruitment programs

Almarai signed a cooperation memorandum with the Food Industries Polytechnic, the
Transport General Authority, and the Saudi Logistics Academy to localize jobs in the
food and beverages sector through training and rehabilitation programs ending in
employment. This came within the first international conference on the labor market,
organized by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development on 13 – 14
December 2023 at the King Abdulaziz Convention Center in Riyadh.

‘These agreements are part of Almarai’s corporate program for the social responsibility
to achieve localization in the food industry sector, which is one of the top priorities of the
comprehensive strategic plans in Almarai, especially since the company is one of the
largest working environments in the kingdom, with more than 9,000 Saudi employees,
including more than 900 Saudi female employees.”Fahad Aldrees, Chief Human
Resources Officer of Almarai, said.

He added that the agreements signed to train and qualify young people are part of the
integrated initiatives and training and rehabilitation programs for national human
resources in Almarai. He pointed out that the company provided about half a million
employee training hours during 2022, raising its retention rate to 90% during 2022.

It is worth mentioning that Almarai is the world’s largest vertically integrated dairy
company, and the largest food and beverage producer and distributor in the Middle
East. Almarai was ranked among LinkedIn’s top 15 Saudi companies for professional
career development for 2022.

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SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA Bank and continues to write its success story

a fully licensed Swiss crypto bank, announced today its new brand identity: AMINA Bank AG. The group operates
globally from its regulated hubs in Zug, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, offering its clients traditional and crypto banking services.
SEBA Bank made history in 2019 by becoming one of the first FINMA-regulated institutions to provide crypto banking services. This rebrand marks a new chapter for the company, which has proudly been in operation for more than four years. AMINA Bank is inspired by the same trailblazing ambition to lead the way for its clients and to write its own future as a Swiss-
regulated crypto bank offering services to its traditional and crypto savvy clients around the globe. The name ‘AMINA’ stems from the term ‘transAMINAtion’, meaning transference of one compound to another. AMINA is a brand driven by perpetual change, bringing together the various ‘compounds’ of traditional, digital, and crypto banking to unlock new potential and
growth for our clients. This vision of change represents the transformation of our clients’ financial future. Franz Bergmueller, CEO of AMINA, said: “We are delighted to introduce the world to our new brand identity. While we say goodbye to the SEBA name, we remain forever proud of the achievements made by the group under the former brand. “Our brand signifies a new era in the company’s growth and strategy; we are a key player in crypto banking and are here to define the future of finance. With our client-focused approach, our years of traversing traditional and crypto finance, we offer a platform for investors to build
wealth safely and under the highest regulatory standards.” “We are grateful to be encouraged by our supportive and committed investors who have been very helpful, supporting the growth of the company. We thank our employees in all the regions
for their dedication and client focus. As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.” Current clients of AMINA Bank (formerly SEBA Bank) will be unaffected by the rebrand other than encountering the new name; all operations will be business as usual across the board. The branch office based in Abu Dhabi and the subsidiaries in Hong Kong and Singapore will subsequently apply for a name change to align with the head office in Zug.

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Uptime Appoints Mustapha Louni Chief Business Officer

Uptime Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Mustapha Louni to the position of Chief Business Officer, a role specifically created to drive strategic leadership and client success. In this new role, Mr. Louni will assume responsibility for the global Uptime sales and marketing organizations and drive overall business value for all Uptime clients. He will retain his existing responsibilities overseeing operations in the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions. In this elevated capacity, Mr. Louni is poised to play a pivotal role in driving Uptime’s next phase of global expansion through strategic initiatives to enhance market awareness of the dramatically expanding global service lines and delivery capabilities of Uptime that uniquely support the global data center industry in its pursuit of ever higher performance through elevated availability, resiliency, sustainability, and cyber-security of digital infrastructure. Louni’s appointment renews and expands Uptime

Institute 39;s 30-year commitment to advancing excellence in the data center sector on a global scale. “Today we are experiencing the next phase of the one-time, planetary transformation from analog to digital. This unprecedented, once-in-a-generation growth in data center demand is primarily driven by continuing cloud adoption, the new promise of AI, and the demonstrable fact
that hybrid digital infrastructure is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” said Martin McCarthy, CEO, Uptime Institute. “These complex and nuanced market demands require a visionary talent like Mustapha Louni. He is someone who cannot only deftly manage specific aspects of the business but also remain ahead of accelerating changes and trends. He continues to earn client
trust and respect by timely delivery on demanding commitments while he also inspires and energizes colleagues and clients alike. I am delighted to announce Mr. Louni’s new position and know that he will continue to expand the impact that he has already brought to Uptime since his arrival.” In 2014, Mr. Louni joined the Uptime organization in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at Panduit and Schneider Electric in Paris and Dubai. As the company’s first commercial resource in the Middle East and Africa region, Mr. Louni played a pivotal role in expanding Uptime’s presence. Within a year, he successfully established what became and remains Uptime’s fastest growing regional office. Under his leadership, Uptime has
extended his impressive trajectory of growth in MEA to the Asia-Pacific regions, augmenting the Uptime workforce with dedicated team members spanning more than a dozen countries across these regions. A new Uptime office has been inaugurated in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) this year, further fortifying the company’s ability to meet its commitment to sustained
growth and excellence and serve clients in critical, accelerating markets for digital infrastructure.

Uptime Institute began development of its proprietary and now globally recognized Tier Standards and its Tier Certifications 30 years ago to ensure that the mission critical computing needs of all organizations could be met with confidence and understood by executive management. Since that time, Uptime Tier Certification as well as other Uptime offerings including assessments and awards in digital infrastructure for ensuring business performance in areas of management and operations, risk and resilience, sustainability, and more recently cyber- security have gained global adoption. Uptime’s expanding success is based on delivering a
unique business service that is based upon unparalleled engineering excellence and technical mastery, while remaining vendor independent and technology agnostic.

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