Saudi Arabia is to officially appoint Aiman al-Mudaifer as the chief executive of NEOM, the $500 billion mega-project at the heart of the kingdom's drive to diversify away from oil, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Mudaifer has been NEOM's acting CEO since November, succeeding Nadhmi al-Nasr, the long-time former chief of the Red Sea urban and industrial development project that is nearly the size of Belgium.
One of the sources said that Mudaifer, who will be appointed in the coming weeks, has deep knowledge of NEOM and has been involved in PIF monitoring the mega-project's developments for some time. The source added that this was a sign that PIF is taking greater oversight over NEOM.
"It certainly makes sense to have careful oversight of a vast initiative such as NEOM. The danger has always been that the logic of developing a well-located but under-utilized part of the kingdom could be undermined by over-ambitious planning and poor delivery," said Justin Alexander, director of Khalij Economics.
Mudaifer, who led the Local Real Estate Division at PIF since 2018, was assigned last year with overseeing the operational continuity of NEOM, which has seen some of its schemes scaled back.
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