The Public Investment Fund (PIF) Tuesday announced the appointments of the following key leaders in line with its ongoing growth strategy. PIF's Chief of Staff, Yazeed AlHumied will be the new head of the Fund's Local Holdings Investments and PIF's Head of Local Holdings Investments, Rashed Sharif, as managing director and CEO of the merged entity of NCB Capital and Samba Capital, a key strategic PIF portfolio company and now the largest bank in Saudi Arabia. Rania Nashar has been appointed as senior advisor to the Governor of PIF Yasser Al-Rumayyan and Fahad Alsaif has been named the new Head of Corporate Finance. Alireza Zaimi, previous head of corporate finance, has been appointed to the role of Special Advisor to Al-Rumayyan in his various roles, and Saad Alkroud, PIF's head of Stakeholder Management, as acting PIF Chief of Staff. The appointments will support the delivery of the Fund's ambitious mandate and strategy by further strengthening its considerable leadership team, both within PIF and across its many portfolio companies. Nashar is a prominent name in the banking world, as the first woman to lead a banking Group in Saudi Arabia as CEO of Samba Financial Group. She brings more than 20 years of professional experience in the banking industry and assumed various roles in different divisions within Samba, and is a member of various boards including Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). Nashar joins PIF with vast experience in banking, audit, governance and trade. Alsaif joins PIF from his role as CEO of the National Debt Management Center and advisor to the Minister of Finance. He built a global standard debt management center for the Ministry of Finance and brings more than 20 years of corporate and investment banking leadership experience to the role. He will become a member of PIF's Management Committee. PIF has a strong leadership team with proven experience and diverse capabilities. As the Fund grows, and to support its ambitious mandate, this experience will be maximized and leveraged across a diverse portfolio and range of business interests. "I would like to welcome Rania and Fahad to PIF. As we continue PIFs ambitious strategy they will bring extensive global capital finance and banking experiences to their positions, which will play an integral role in helping accelerate PIF's growth trajectory," said Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of PIF. "I would also like to congratulate and thank Yazeed, Rashed, Alireza and Saad for the significant contributions they have made to PIF and I look forward to continuing to work closely with all of them in their new roles. These appointments further strengthen our proven leadership team and are critical to ensuring we continue to achieve our ambitious growth trajectory and important mandate on behalf of the people of Saudi Arabia." One of the world's largest and most impactful sovereign wealth funds, PIF is the main engine helping to drive Saudi Arabia's economic transformation as part of the country's Vision 2030. PIF last week surpassed the 1,000-employee mark, expanding from an initial 40 employees in 2016. The Fund has also grown to over $360 billion AUM in the past four years and has invested a total of $83 billion in the Saudi economy during that time, while contributing to the creation of more than 190,000 new jobs in KSA during the same period. — SPA
