H.E. Ghassan bin Ahmed Al-Sulaiman

Founder and Chairman of the  Al-Sulaiman Group and a member and chairman of the board in several companies in the private, government, and non-profit sectors. He is also a former Social Development Bank board member, the Privatization Center, Monsha’at, Al-Safoo Group, Almarai Company, the Arabian Cement Company, and many other companies.

He has a great passion for the entrepreneurship sector, and this led him to become the first governor of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises in 2016. Before that, he was the first to establish a business accelerator to support startups in Saudi Arabia and headed the Center for Small and Medium Enterprises of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jeddah. He also founded and chaired Venture Capital Bank, Venture Capital Investment Company, and Unayzah Investment Company.

His second passion is the education sector, where he is currently involved with several universities and training companies.

Among his previous positions in the non-profit sector, he has served as President of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Chairman of the Saudi-Turkish Business Council, the Chairman of the Saudi-Malaysian Business Council, the Chairman of the Saudi-Swedish Business Council, and Honorary Consul of Sweden in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. Currently, he serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Center for Family Business and the Chairman of the National Committee for Non-Profit Organizations and the National Committee to Increase the Private Sector’s Contribution to GDP.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in addition to an MBA from the USA plus a Doctorate degree in Systems Thinking in 2004 from Hull University in the UK and a graduate professional degree in  Business Economics with honors from Harvard University (2020).