Why Gulf nations can lead the world into a new renaissance post-coronavirus

According to organisers of a major global summit in Saudi Arabia, it will be the Gulf region which can lead the global community into a new renaissance as this region accelerates past others in terms of recovery from coronavirus and its impact.

Dubbed ‘Davos of the Desert’, the Future Investment Initiative (FFI) will return to Riyadh on January 27 and 28 featuring more than 110 speakers joining physically in the kingdom and virtually from the FII satellites in New York, Paris, Beijing and Mumbai.

Delayed since October, FII will be one of the first major physical gatherings of global political and business leaders since the pandemic struck, forcing moments such as the G20 Leaders Summit to be staged online only. As well as political figures, in attendance will be representative of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds, banks, oil companies, private equity firms and global sporting bodies.

As the clock ticks down towards the arrival of speakers in Saudi, along with a select audience of hundreds rather than thousands in previous years, Richard Attias, CEO and Board Member of the FII Institute, believes the conference’s theme of the ‘Neo Renaissance’ will be well-suited to the region hosting it.

“I think the Gulf will be probably one of the regions which will be the first one to rebirth, to precisely lead this new renaissance,” he said.

“You know, the first renaissance was born in Firenze, in Italy, in Europe, I think the ‘Neo Renaissance’ will potentially start from the Gulf countries, and this is for multiple reasons.

“They have managed very well the crisis, the vaccination campaigns, the sustainability of the domestic markets. They have protected very well their citizens. And definitely now, I think they are potentially exiting from this crisis in very good health, economically and physically.

“This will help them to expand. This is why we see, in my personal opinion, so many people who want to attend FII in Riyadh, because they want to come to this part of the world, they see opportunities to restart some machines, some investment, some business opportunities to restart the global economy from here in a new way.”

FII will be one of the first major physical gatherings of global political and business leaders since the pandemic struck

This year’s conference, believes the founder of Richard Attias & Associates which stages the event, will be an example of new thinking with a hybrid model holding live sessions simultaneously in Saudi Arabia, the USA, India, France and China, plus virtual attendees dialling in.

But the event will also showcase, said Attias, why it is so vital for leaders of the world to come together to meet physically to find new solutions to the shared challenges across the globe.

Attias points to the historic meeting on day one of the GCC’s Annual Summit in Riyadh when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Emir of Qatar greeted each other with a hug in their first meeting in years.

“We see speakers flying 14 hours just to spend 12 hours in Riyadh on stage because they want to collaborate. We saw that also during the G20. The main lesson of the G20 which I learned by listening to the leaders is ‘we will never be able to fight this virus, this crisis, unless we collaborate, unless we build partnership, unless we share best practices. Multilateralism is absolutely crucial. So the first lesson is this notion of collaboration.

“It is difficult to build trust and confidence when you are reduced to a 10-centimetre window. You cannot even feel my expression. You cannot feel mine, or your, authenticity, it’s a very cold conversation. And the problem is not just about the meeting itself online. It’s what is happening on the side, before, during and after. And this is how, especially for business conversations, you need to build the relationship between people. And this is why the in-person and physical meetings are absolutely crucial.”

Richard Attias (left) with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and King Abdullah of Jordan

The FII two-day event will break into three sections:

• Next Generation Leadership focused on ‘Bold ideas and fresh thinking to rebuild the global economy’
• Frontier Innovations exploring ‘Disruptive technologies and business models to accelerate digital work, life and leisure’
• Investment for Humanity, unpacking how ‘Sustainable capital and resources to breathe new life into companies and markets’

With world thought leaders such as Blair Sheppard, PwC’s global head of strategy and leadership, warning recently in Arabian Business that globalisation is broken, climate change is accelerating, growing polarisation is paralyzing nations and that technology is set to wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs, the speakers at FII face a challenge on unprecedented proportions, and that’s without the pandemic.

Indeed a recent Ipsos study, reported by the World Economic Forum, said that almost two-thirds of global respondents thought that income inequality in their country will increase. Meanwhile, 40 percent thought it likely that major global stock markets will crash.

But Attias, himself a strategic advisor to many in the top echelons of business and politics, believes FII is up to the task, especially with experts and leaders gathering in person again.

“At the FII Institute, we want to carry a very important message which is part of our DNA, which is hope and optimism. We should always look at the half-full glass and not only the half-empty glass.

FFI will return to Riyadh on January 27 and 28 featuring more than 110 speakers joining physically in the kingdom

“And, we think it is part of our mission to be a curator of optimism. We will come here to reimagine. You cannot reimagine through a zoom conversation, you have to reimagine by brainstorming together under the same roof.

“It will be a full reinvention, a full real transformation of what is happening, the opposite of just pushing a button and restarting with the status quo, as it was before. I think you have to totally reinvent all the business models and this is why we are targeting so many industries during FII. We want to understand how we can reinvent the culture, the industry of sports, the industry of entertainment, the industry of energy, all these areas have to be reinvented.

“This is the main backbone and the red line of our global conversation. We called many international speakers, global CEOs, and asked ‘what do you want to talk about?’. What they told us is ‘please build a program where we will have a very disruptive, unexpected conversation on how can we reinvent ourselves’. We cannot restart as we were because we saw the limit of our previous business models and organisation in case of a world crisis. So we need to learn from it.”