Money and machines: Saudi finance leaders build confidence, not just capability
Saudi Arabia is entering a decisive phase where financial literacy meets AI fluency. Vision 2030 isn't just about tech infrastructure-it's about people who think in numbers, reason with ethics, and move capital with intent.
For finance leaders, that means building teams who can read a P&L, question a model, and pressure-test strategy with data. The edge is human judgment, amplified by technology-not replaced by it.
Financial literacy as a growth lever
Shereen Tawfiq, co-founder and CEO of Balinca, treats financial literacy as a national growth driver. Her team runs simulations that force real decisions under constraints-pricing, hiring, capital allocation-and shows the financial impact instantly.
She calls it building a "business gut feeling," the kind of pattern recognition that spreadsheets alone don't teach. AI can personalize lessons, she says, but judgment, ethics, and financial reasoning still sit with people. The tool is a co-pilot. The pilot is you.
Tawfiq's thesis on women-led SMEs is bold-and quantifiable. If even 10-15 percent of these firms scale into growth ventures within five years, the economy could see a $50-$70 billion lift through jobs, capital, and innovation. That's not an aspiration; it's a pipeline.
From plans to markets-fast
Years ago, Tawfiq helped lay early frameworks for private equity and venture capital in the Kingdom. What began as a 15-year roadmap was compressed into five. The result: a functional investment market backing non-oil growth, startups, and industry depth.
The lesson for CFOs and fund managers: speed matters when incentives, capital formation, and talent line up. Build capability while the window is open.
Finance training that sticks
At Balinca, theory gives way to immersion. Participants make decisions, see outcomes, and iterate. This builds intuition for cash cycles, risk, and margin mechanics-skills that travel from workshops to boardrooms.
For corporate finance teams, this approach upgrades performance in budgeting, scenario planning, and capital allocation. It also improves how leaders communicate with product, sales, and technology.
AI-ready leadership-what it looks like
Jonathan Holmes of Korn Ferry Middle East sees a clear pattern: executives are younger, more tech-fluent, and faster in execution. AI here is tied to growth, not fear. That shift changes the quality of leadership decisions.
Research highlights six traits that matter: sustaining vision, decisive action, scaling for impact, continuous learning, addressing fear, and pushing beyond early success. In finance, that means linking AI projects to P&L outcomes, not experiments for their own sake.
- Anchor AI to business goals: cost to serve, working capital, pricing, fraud, and forecasting accuracy
- Move quickly from pilots to enterprise use with clear ownership and model governance
- Upskill teams on data literacy and prompt fluency; pair analysts with operators
- Keep human-in-the-loop review for ethics, bias, and material decisions
Policy tailwinds and institutional backing
Vision 2030 and the Financial Sector Development Program have raised the bar for financial capability across industries. So has the national AI strategy. Finance leaders who plug into these initiatives gain momentum and credibility across the enterprise.
Vision 2030 and SDAIA provide the policy and infrastructure rails. Your job is to translate them into operating models that produce cash flow and resilience.
Skills-based models change how finance works
Organizations in the Kingdom are shifting from fixed roles to skills-based staffing. People are matched to high-impact projects-FP&A sprints, data remediation, pricing experiments, AI adoption-based on capability, not title.
For CFOs, this unlocks flexibility. For talent, it accelerates learning, visibility, and career mobility. The new currency is adaptability paired with measurable output.
Women, capital, and compounding outcomes
The projected GDP lift from women-led SMEs isn't theoretical-it's a capital allocation question. Better access to training, networks, and funding multiplies outcomes across sectors, including transport and other high-impact fields.
As Tawfiq puts it, financial confidence grows through open dialogue about money, valuations, and investment. When more women engage that conversation, leadership benches deepen and markets mature.
What finance leaders can do next
- Run simulation-based finance training for managers to build intuition and speed
- Stand up an AI-finance portfolio with clear ROI targets: forecast lift, close-time reduction, fraud loss cuts
- Adopt a skills marketplace inside the company; staff projects by capability, not hierarchy
- Measure model risk like credit risk: documentation, monitoring, thresholds, and escalation paths
- Mentor women operators with P&L exposure and board prep; build the growth-venture funnel
Did you know?
- Saudi women-led SMEs could add $50-$70 billion to GDP over five years if 10-15% evolve into growth ventures.
- AI in Saudi Arabia is seen as a catalyst for progress, unlike in many Western markets where it is often viewed as a threat.
- Saudi Arabia is adopting skills-based models, matching employees to projects rather than fixed roles, making flexibility the new currency of success.
Tools and learning for finance teams
If you're building an AI stack for finance-forecasting, anomaly detection, policy checks-curate tools your analysts will actually use, then standardize. A practical starting point is a vetted list of finance-focused tools and courses.
The takeaway
The Kingdom's advantage is human capital that thinks analytically and acts ethically. Finance leaders who combine financial literacy, AI fluency, and inclusive talent pipelines will set the pace.
Technology is the accelerator. People-confident with money and machines-are the engine.
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