CEO

We renew our commitment to be the trusted partner of every business family seeking to preserve its legacy and grow its future

CEO's message

Since the National Center for Family Businesses launched its strategy in early 2023, we have kept a clear mission in view: to build an integrated ecosystem that sustains family businesses and strengthens their contribution to national development. This mission is in step with our leadership's ambitious vision, which aims to raise the private sector's share of GDP from 40% to 65% by 2030.

The real value of family businesses is clear in the numbers: our data show that they make up 95% of private-sector businesses and employ nearly 48% of the workforce. At this scale, preserving these businesses, developing their governance and securing their sustainability is a national priority, with a direct effect on the stability and growth of the national economy and the labor market.

By the grace of God, 2025 was a historic turning point for the Center: we began moving from the founding stage to the stage of "expanding impact", which has translated into tangible achievements. Here are the most notable:

• Institutionalizing the Center: A royal order granting the Center financial and administrative independence, and work begun on completing the related technical and regulatory steps.
• Enriching Arabic content: More than 222 specialist publications, guides and pieces of content, widely followed across the Kingdom and the Arab world.
• Expanding training: More than 139 training programmes and workshops, some developed in-house and some with leading international institutions such as INSEAD.
• Preparing advisors and mediators: The launch of the Certified Family Business Advisor (CFBA) and Certified Family Business Mediator (CFBM) programmes.
• Launching the advisory program: Current-state analysis, family charter review and oversight of institutional transformation for a wide range of business families.
• Settling disputes: Alternative resolution through more than 300 mediations by Center-accredited mediators, helping settle cases worth over SAR 282 million.
• Geographic reach: Organising and taking part in more than 78 events across 27 cities in and outside the Kingdom, raising awareness among every target group.
• Partnerships and alliances: 51 agreements and partnerships, including 16 cooperation agreements with chambers of commerce, bringing roles together to serve members in every region.
• Sustaining the Center: Establishing the Center's endowment and its first board of trustees, a source that secures the financial sustainability of the Center's work and initiatives.

As we give thanks for what has been achieved, our ambition is to build on it in 2026: we will focus on issuing the Center's statute, expanding our advisory and training services, building family business communities and councils, and strengthening the Center's role in public policymaking by establishing a think tank, alongside other initiatives with our partners.

In closing, we at the National Center for Family Businesses renew our commitment to be the trusted partner of every business family seeking to preserve its legacy and grow its future; to lead thought and opinion on family businesses in Arabic worldwide; and to be the most reliable partner for all parties in serving the interests of family businesses, helping shape a prosperous and sustainable national economy.