How FII Institute CEO Richard Attias Earns the Trust of Global Elites

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Richard Attias has been gathering global elites for more than 30 years. He was executive producer of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos for 15 years, launched the Clinton Global Initiative, and has produced Nobel Laureates Conferences. Now in its eighth year, the Future Investment Initiative (FII)—the high-profile investment conference Attias leads—will bring together the likes of BlackRock’s Larry Fink, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser in Riyadh from Oct. 28 to Oct. 31 to discuss the critical challenges across issues including energy, climate change, investment, artificial intelligence, and policy.

“I'm a civil engineer, and instead of building bridges, my passion for 35 years was to build bridges between people, because I know for a fact that there is not a single issue which could not be solved by a dialogue—and an in-person dialogue,” Attias tells TIME. Even amid lockdowns and travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Attias says he fought to ensure an in-person gathering could take place in Riyadh. Unlike the usual events, which draw around 5,000 delegates, he brought together 600 in January 2021, with an option for people to attend virtually as well. “We took all the necessary healthcare precautions, but we had this amazing conversation. We all came—the 600 CEOs—with a conviction, what we called 'The Neo-Renaissance.' We knew that the world would come back stronger. We knew that the world and our humanity is resilient,” he says.

Attias founded his communication and advisory firm Richard Attias & Associates in 2008. The firm specializes in nation branding, with a focus on attracting foreign direct investment, and notably produced the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics in its first year. In 2017, after being approached by the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, he created the FII, known as “Davos in the desert,” and went on to found the FII Institute not-for-profit foundation, which he leads as CEO.

Born in Fez, Morocco, Attias has a long history with the region. He previously served as CEO of the U.A.E. government entity Dubai Event Management Company and has become known as a trusted advisor to the House of Saud. But he also shows excitement for the kingdom’s potential. “As a civil engineer, if I had to go back to work, I would definitely pick Saudi Arabia as my destination, because I want to be part of what is being built there, like the Murabba project.” FII has faced challenges, though. The 2018 summit faced boycotts in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, but Attias emphasizes the power of bringing people together for a dialogue, “Even if you don't agree with your counterparts.”

Attias spoke to TIME in September about how he earns the trust of global business leaders, the potential of AI, and what's next for the FII.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The FII is in its eighth year now. Tell me about how it started.

It started eight years ago with a very simple request: The leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was investing more and more in Vision 2030 and one of the vehicles of Vision 2030 is the Public Investment Fund [PIF], which is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. And this is the engine of the diversification of the economy of the kingdom. So, when I was asked, as someone who was known as a curator of multiple global platforms, what can we do? I suggested to the leadership of the kingdom and to His Excellency, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF, that there is a vacuum. Not a single global platform talking about investment worldwide, focusing only on investment, really existed. To quote the Crown Prince, he said “Yes, it would be fantastic to have a place where every year people gather to understand where the money is going, in terms of geographies and in terms of sectors.” That is the DNA of FII. It's a call to action—how should we invest for good? And how can we also be extremely inclusive with emerging economies. At FII, you will find not only global CEOs like the big private equities of the world, but you will find people from India, China, Korea, Japan, Africa, Latin America. [And] you will find different generations of leaders—the old guard, but also young entrepreneurs and startups.

After a few years, we realized that this conversation was starting to have a great impact on humanity. We decided, five years ago, that this conversation should be owned by an independent vehicle. And we created the FII Institute as a not-for-profit foundation, which is now 100% independent financially, because we have more than 40 strategic partners, international, global corporations—HSBC, Visa, Aramco, and Reliance, to name a few. We became a global catalyst for change, bridging innovation, sustainability and human progress to empower a brighter and more inclusive future. And we realized that for some geographies, it was complicated for them to join the conversation every year in Riyadh, so we decided also to have the FII in Miami, in Brazil, and in Hong Kong. And this is how we are creating these global conversations.

Not everyone can convene the likes of Larry Fink, Christine Lagarde, and Jamie Dimon. How have you approached growing this summit to become a regular fixture on the calendars of top CEOs and other leaders?

Frankly speaking, the way to convince these people is about trust. When you are a trusted person and they know that you don't have a specific agenda. And you will always focus on ideas. They come because they know that the conversations which would be curated are unexpected conversations. They learn. They share—in total transparency—best practices. And I always fight to include the media in the center of my conversations because they are the people who are challenging all these conversations. 

And we create the conditions to help have deal conversations. In the past seven years, we realized that during FII, more than $120 billion worth of deals happened [at FII]. The magic touch of FII is that we are able to create, every year, this ambiance under the same roof, where people know that they need to do something to impact humanity. I am obsessed with the call to action. They like that because it’s tangible and this is why they like to come. This is why at the FII Institute, we started the FII Priority Compass. Every year we do a big survey worldwide—50,000-plus people in more than half of the world, representing almost 50% of the population in the world, in all geographies. The main question we ask is, what is your priority today? Three and a half years ago, when we started, everyone was talking about climate change. After COVID, priority number one for the past three years, and still now. People are extremely concerned by their financial economics. So we still see these three key priorities: number one is cost of living, number two is social inclusion. And access to healthcare.

You mentioned that climate and ESG is less of a priority since the pandemic—

Oh no, to be honest, now people are really looking at it. We see more appetite. We were in Brazil in June and ESG was really part of the conversation, because they know that it's extremely important for Latin America and for the Global South to look at ESG investment. So you're absolutely right—after COVID, it was a little bit forgotten, but we pushed hard, and now we see that conversations about ESG are coming back, because everyone is struggling to attract foreign direct investment. Private equity firms are telling me it's complicated today to raise money because many people are concerned about a potential big economic crisis, a recession. The subject of debts in countries is becoming extremely concerning. Europe is not doing very well—we see some social movements starting. So when you have this, [feeling of] “oh, I don't know where the world is going”—in stock markets, there is so much volatility, if you look at some stock champions like a LVMH or Nvidia, oh my God, they go from plus 20% to dropping 20% in one week. This volatility is concerning for many investors, and this is why today it's not easy to raise capital. So this moment is challenging, and this is why it's important to refocus on ESG and to push investors to invest for good, and to look at some emerging economies. We see money going East and South—we saw many investments happening in Brazil. And we also see money going to Africa in some very specific sectors, like mining, renewable energy, and infrastructure. So it's quite interesting to see these new equations. And this is what is part of the content of FII every year.

You mentioned Nvidia. I imagine that AI will feature heavily in conversations this year too. There's been some talk about whether we're in an AI bubble. What are your thoughts on that, and what are you expecting the conversation to be?

It's a very important conversation. One of the outcomes of our survey is that more than 50% of the people that we have questioned consider that AI and generative AI is now an extremely important part of their day-to-day lives. AI is not just a trend or a bubble. AI is definitely something which will stay. I was [recently] having a conversation on stage with one of our partners, Marcelo Claure from Claure Group. He was a former CEO of SoftBank [Group International], and [recently named Group Vice Chairman] of Shein. I was [trying] to understand why AI was becoming almost a backbone of everything he's doing. He is a happy owner of the Girona football [soccer] team in Spain. He bought this team when it was in the second league, not well known. He took AI and he tried to look at data about players in the world. And instead of paying a fortune for some players, he went and bought some players who [had] very good data on their performance. And AI helped him to invest in a very smart way. And by buying these players who were not on the radar, believe it or not, Girona became almost the leader of league one. He did exactly the same investing in AI with the Mayo Clinic, and they are investing a lot on doctors who are doing diagnostics remotely. What a great revolution—amazing, inclusive access to health. So yes, my conviction, the conviction of the FII Institute from day one, AI was one of our pillars [along with] robotics, sustainability, education, and healthcare. So we are absolutely convinced that AI will disrupt all industries for the long term, bringing more productivity, more efficiency, and it will be AI for good. Yes, we need to answer the question, are we losing jobs because of AI? No, we just need to reinvent and create new jobs and to adjust and adapt the current jobs for people to be trained, to get the skills which are needed to integrate this AI revolution. I think we should look at AI as an amazing tool, and a tool for progress.

You touched on the issue of how it could impact the labor market, and earlier you spoke about inequality. People like Sam Altman have suggested that AI could lift the floor and help to reduce inequality. Is that something you’re hearing people talking about right now?

Yes, at FII Miami in February, it was not our intention, but at the end of the two and a half days, we realized that everyone on stage was bringing AI into the conversation. When we were talking about sports, energy, or space, AI was there. So people are adopting AI, and they are trying to see how this AI will disrupt, for good, conversations and sectors. And also how AI can, absolutely, reduce inequalities. How can you reduce inequalities? Number one, education, education, education. It's extremely important to educate all the people in the world, because this is how you will give them a chance to be part of the global economy. AI could be an accelerator of that. Inclusive technology is one of the key outcomes of our FII Priority Index—governments should fight to give access to technology to their people. It's absolutely imperative. And I think the private sector should play a role also in that, because we cannot live in a world which is divided, where you have the people who have access to technology and the people who do not. So the minute you have access to the technology, then you can have access to knowledge. 

I see this AI—I would not say revolution, I would call it the AI evolution—being a progress for our civilization. Of course, we need to address some ethics risks, some challenges that we have in terms of defense and security. But this is not new, and I think world leaders are taking care of that. The private sector should be part of this conversation, and we are at FII Institute hosting some of these conversations.

There have been some people who are in favor of a pause in AI development, and have called for that, including Elon Musk.

Personally, I don't think we can stop the AI evolution, and we should not. It would be a mistake. And if you look at the country where we were born, Saudi Arabia, there is a great vision on AI, a great strategy on AI, on how to develop and implement data centers, on how to create a full ecosystem for AI, for entrepreneurs, incubators. But at the same time, there is a lot of lucidity about tackling and addressing these issues and having real deep conversations. These are not topics that you can ignore, but you cannot stop an evolution, only because there is a risk. The opposite—you need to address the risk, you need to put in some regulation, rules of law, etc. It's like the internet or the space revolution and evolution—now we need these satellites to go all over the world to be sure that we are all connected. So I think technology is great, progress is great, but you need always—and this is why we need world leaders and we need leadership—to be sure that we address the challenges that any single evolution is bringing to our humanity with risks. 

Saudi Arabia has been undergoing a massive transformation under the Crown Prince, but there have been some challenges. I believe the FII also faced some challenges in 2018. Not everyone necessarily has wanted to be associated with Saudi Arabia, particularly around the time of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. How have you seen perceptions of the kingdom evolve?

First of all, I have a personal philosophy for more than 30 years, which is to never mix conferences with politics, which is extremely important. This is why I'm very happy that the FII is owned by the FII Institute as an independent organization. When I was in my previous life producing the opening ceremony of the Olympics in China in 2008 everyone was calling for a boycott, and then everyone came to China to attend the Olympics. So FII in 2018 was very highly attended. We had more than 4,000 delegates who came. We need always to be here to have conversations, even if you don't agree with your counterparts. So 2018, the second edition of FII, was a great edition. We had great conversations, and we spoke about everything. 

The second point, about how I see the evolution of the image of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as a branding nation expert, I see the image growing in a very positive way, because people realize that Vision 2030 is happening. Because people see the transformation of the kingdom with women’s inclusion, women’s empowerment. You cannot talk about any country unless you visit the country. And trust me, what I see and what I see during the conversations we have at FII is people are excited by how the country is moving forward in tourism, in infrastructure, in sports, how the country is moving in terms of renewable energy, transformation, adopting hydrogen, how the country is transforming itself in the sector of entertainment. And many other sectors, creating jobs and inspiring a lot of people. So I see the image and the evolution in a very positive way. It's really a startup nation in motion, and there is a lot of energy, and I see a lot of commitment from the Saudi people behind the vision. There is a direction, and there is a vibrant society. I am extremely impressed by the quality of the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which I think is the main energy of the kingdom. I don't think the energy is oil. I think the energy of the kingdom is really the people of Saudi Arabia, men and women, who are really working super hard, and are extremely curious—adopting AI, adopting technologies, extremely, vocal on social media, etc. I see the transformation of the media landscape. 

It reminds me, really, for a country of 35 million habitants, what is happening now to support the brand is almost what happened in China 25 years ago, when the country went through a huge transformation and became the number one or number two economic power of the world. Of course, each country has its challenges, but the challenges are addressed and we live in the global world where everything is transparent. And FII is successful because it is happening in Riyadh, which is becoming a hub, connecting West and East, North and South. So even the geography is an advantage today in the global world and in this new world order which is happening, in terms of geoeconomics.

You mentioned that you are independent, but is there a financial relationship with the [Saudi] state?

No, we got our revenue from two different sources. We started a membership organization because we saw that many of our delegates, participants, wanted to play a role with us. They wanted to contribute to our initiatives, where we give access to clean water in some African villages, access to education in other countries, because today, many countries were left behind during COVID, with no access to technology. They also want to support our reports, our publications. As of today, we have more than 1,500 members—individuals or corporations. 

And then we have strategic partners. We don't want quantity, we want quality, and we don't want too many, because for each of them, we are developing initiatives together. We want them to be very involved in our programs. As of today, we have 35 strategic partners. PIF is one of them, but we have multiple international corporations from the U.S., from Europe, from Latin America, and these are the revenues and the source of revenues, which are making us independent today.

You've expanded to Miami, Hong Kong, London. What are your plans for the future? 

In 2025, we will be, for sure, back to Miami, because Miami is becoming an extremely successful conversation. And we see great fintech entrepreneurs, AI entrepreneurs—Miami is almost a new America. We will definitely go back to Asia in December 2025. We will potentially be in Europe for the first time, because it's a very important moment to discuss Europe. You saw all this transformation happening in U.K., in France, in Germany, etc. So it's a very important time for us to potentially host a conversation in Europe. Definitely, we will be in Asia. We will be in Riyadh every year. And then we will decide what we will do in Africa. We got an invitation from the government of Kenya to host an FII in Kenya, but we will see what will happen in 2025. The board will decide, after we hear from our members, where do they want us to go, to host conversation, to help them to be in touch with [certain] regions to understand the economy, the ecosystem, the geoeconomics of continents. But our goal is to be in all continents.