Bandar Alkheraiji
Q: Founding Day marks the beginning of the Saudi state and its legacy. As you reflect on that legacy, how do you see the Kingdom’s transformation unfolding in light of today’s global dynamics?
A: Founding Day marks the beginning of the Saudi state and the institutional foundations that have shaped its evolution. As we reflect on that legacy, it is clear that transformation today is unfolding within a period defined by structural rather than cyclical change. Globally, fiscal space is tightening, demographics are diverging, technological adoption is accelerating, and supply chains are being reconfigured across regions.
Saudi Arabia’s reform agenda anticipated many of these shifts with the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016. That early foundation enabled the Kingdom to sequence reforms over time and build institutional capacity deliberately. Today, this trajectory continues to evolve, with sustained investments in AI, human capital, education, new technologies, and emerging growth platforms shaping the next phase of economic and social development.
In this context, long-term success depends on the quality of strategy, policy coherence, and institutional capability. When policy defines ambition and state capability determines its endurance, institutions are able to operate consistently across economic conditions and sustain progress over time.
Q: What areas of reform matter most for building state capability?
A: The reforms that matter most are those that strengthen how decisions are made and sustained across institutions. That typically means clearer governance and executive oversight, coherent economic and social policy, and financing and management models that allow institutions to perform consistently.
Governance matters because it aligns policy, resources, and delivery over time. When that alignment is in place, policy can be translated into institutions that perform reliably; progress begins to compound, and reform momentum can endure.
Q: What led you to choose a career in consulting, and specifically in the public sector?
A: I was drawn to consulting because it offers a unique platform to address long-term capability questions: how large systems are governed, how policy translates into institutions, and how complex organizations sustain performance over time.
The public sector is where those questions are most consequential. Decisions in governance, economic and social policy, and institutional design don’t just affect single organizations; they shape outcomes for entire societies.
At this stage of my career, the public domain offers both the highest intellectual challenge and the greatest opportunity to contribute to enduring state capabilities.
Q: What value do you aim to bring to senior public sector leaders?
A: Senior public-sector leaders are often navigating decisions where the technical answer is not the main challenge, the challenge is aligning multiple objectives, stakeholders, and constraints in ways that hold under real-world conditions.
The value I aim to bring is disciplined decision support: clarifying the decision at hand, making trade-offs explicit, stress-testing options against evidence and international reference points, and translating ambition into institutional choices that can be executed within the Saudi context.
In large public systems, this is what protects outcomes: not one-off initiatives, but consistent decision quality across boards, executives, and institutions over time.
Q: How does Strategy& enable this kind of work?
A: Strategy& combines high-level strategy with grounded implementation design. We support leadership teams in shaping direction, prioritizing trade-offs, and sequencing reform before ideas are translated into delivery models or operating structures.
In the public sector, that vantage point is critical for transformation. Early design decisions shape how reform is ultimately translated into execution. My focus is helping leaders connect ambition to execution in disciplined and sustainable ways.
Q: What trends do you see in Saudi talent entering consulting today?
A: There is strong and growing interest among Saudi graduates and young professionals entering the consulting profession, and many are already contributing to complex public- and private-sector work at a global standard.
Within Strategy&, this is reflected in entry pathways such as cooperative training programs and Qadat, a ten-month program for GCC fresh graduates beginning their careers in consulting.
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