Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in its own clearly defined vision for the future, and an increasing number of in-house counsel have found themselves in a position to help facilitate the Kingdom’s goals.
Despite Saudi Arabia often being compared to neighbours such as the UAE, the Kingdom stands alone in the region in many respects – culturally and economically. But the winds of change blowing in from the rest of the Gulf are making their mark and, if the Kingdom can be compared to the likes of the UAE, it is because the ruling classes are embracing change as a necessity – albeit the speed and shape that such change is taking may be unique.
The headline differentiators are inherently contradictory: on the one hand, you have Saudi Arabian women being granted the right to drive amidst a swathe of liberalisations; while on the other hand, you have Skype and WhatsApp – both rapidly becoming key tools in the arsenal of businesses around the world – being banned in the Kingdom. But to focus on the areas where Saudi Arabia may be lagging behind some of its closest neighbours is to paint an incomplete picture of a country that, in actuality, is undertaking a rapid period of modernisation. At the centre of this transformation are the general counsel (both born locally and expatriated from abroad) who are finding ways to partake in the oncoming new era, which is providing opportunities to meaningfully affect the course of business in Saudi Arabia to a degree rarely seen in other jurisdictions.
