The Board of Trustees of the FII Institute has appointed Her Royal Highness Princess Dr. Maha bint Mishari bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as Chief Executive Officer. The appointment was announced on 10 June 2026. She succeeds founder Richard Attias, who transitions to chairman of the institute's executive committee in a planned handover that keeps the founder engaged in the institution he built.
Princess Maha brings a track record of leadership spanning healthcare, higher education, research, institutional advancement and international engagement. Most recently she served as Vice President of External Relations and Advancement at Alfaisal University, where she played a central role in building global partnerships and advancing the institution's standing among the Kingdom's leading centers of excellence.
The Riyadh-based nonprofit, best known for its flagship annual Future Investment Initiative forum, has grown under Attias from a conference brand into a year-round platform spanning artificial intelligence, education, healthcare and sustainability programs, with a global membership and investment-conversation footprint that few convening institutions can match.
The succession reads as a deliberate act of institutional maturation. Moving the founder to an executive committee chairmanship while appointing a Saudi royal with deep academic and institutional networks signals that the institute intends to be understood as a permanent Saudi institution with global reach, rather than an event franchise built around one impresario. The healthcare and higher-education background of the incoming chief executive also hints at where the institute's programmatic center of gravity may move next.
For global executives and investors who use the FII platform, the practical takeaway is continuity of convening power with a strengthened institutional anchor in Riyadh. For the region's leadership market, the appointment adds to a visible cohort of senior Saudi women taking chief executive roles at nationally significant institutions, a trend boards across the Kingdom are actively recruiting for.
