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SAUDI ARABIA - Industry

Walid A. Abukhaled

CEO, SAMI

Bio

Walid A. Abukhaled is the CEO of SAMI,
having joined from Northrop Grumman,
where he served as CEO for the Middle
East. Prior to that he was deputy minister
for industrial affairs at the Ministry of
Commerce. He has previously held senior
roles at BAE Systems.

"My appointment as SAMI’s CEO came at quite a critical time for both the local de-fense industry and the Kingdom at large."
SAMI is spearheading efforts to boost local contributions to the defense supply chain.
August 2020 marked your official appointment as SAMI’s CEO. What are some of the main highlights and milestones achieved by the company during the last few years?

My appointment as SAMI’s CEO came at quite a critical time for both the local de-fense industry and the Kingdom at large. Despite this, we have managed to meet every challenge head-on and emerge as a more sustainable, well-integrated company that plays an indispensable role in the Kingdom’s defense sector localization efforts. One achievement I am especially proud of is our entrance of top 100 defense companies in just four years after starting our operations, in addition to our role as the inaugural World Defense Show’s (WDS) strategic partner. WDS was the most exciting industry event in recent memory to me by far, and SAMI devised an ingenious pavilion, the largest in the entire exhibition space, which also saw the signing of several strategic agreements with leading international OEMs. Furthermore, the pavilion also allowed us to showcase the company’s rebranding, which reflects our full-spectrum approach to integrated defense. 2021 was a highly successful year for SAMI that saw us generate a total annual defense revenue of SAR 3 billion, equivalent to a YoY increase of 2,782%. This exceptional growth comes just five years after SAMI was established and has been driven by a series of strategic partnerships and acquisitions designed to accelerate the transfer of technology and expertise to the Kingdom in the land, sea, air, and advanced electronics defense domains.

How is SAMI building a sustainable and self-sufficient defense sector that significantly contributes to Saudi Arabia’s economy?

A key component of sustainability and self-sufficiency is supply chain security. At SAMI, we are establishing a special function called Saudi Supply Chain to encourage growth in the Saudi defense industry and to ensure that the domestic ecosystem can respond to all future market demands. This supply chain security will be further bolstered through advanced technologies such as AI, block-chain, robotics, 3D printing, and the IoT. Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in supply chain to create a more resilient, future-proof economy.

SAMI has stated that it is speeding up its transformation to become one of the world’s top 25 defense and security companies by 2030. How will you achieve such an ambitious target?

SAMI enjoys incredibly strong ties with so many leading international OEMs. In under a decade, we have successfully created a network of strategic partnerships and converted them into operational joint ventures with strong localization mandates. This strategy has served us well since our founding less than five years ago, and we will continue to expand on our technology and knowledge transfer efforts, further cementing SAMI as an enabler of human talent development, national GDP growth, and long-term economic diversification.

Saudi Arabia hosted its first World Defense Show in Riyadh with a record USD7.9 billion (SAR29.7 billion) in deals closed over the course of four days. What was SAMI’s role in the event, and how did the event help show-case the Kingdom’s local opportunities?

As I mentioned earlier, SAMI was the event’s strategic partner and its largest exhibiting entity. Our pavilion exhibited advanced offerings from across seven key defense sub-sectors. SAMI’s subsidiaries, SAMI Advanced Electronics Company (AEC), and Aircraft Accessories and Components Company (AACC), as well as its joint ventures SAMINavantia Naval Industries, SAMI L3Harris Technologies, SAMICMI Defense Systems, SAMI Thales Electronic Systems, and SAMIFigeac, also displayed their products and services at our booth. In total, 166 products spanning the company’s business divisions were exhibited. It goes with-out saying that we spared no expense in showcasing the Kingdom’s capabilities, and the impression we made throughout those four days had a resounding impact on the event’s overall success. The event itself gave SAMI the opportunity to communicate to our international peers that we are not only interested in the acquisition of defense capabilities, but in truly embracing and contributing to the smart defense revolution, one where AI, data and information technology, and advanced communications form an integral part of the Kingdom’s defense landscape.

What are SAMI’s targets and objectives set in the company’s 2022/23 agenda?

SAMI aims to continue building strategic partnerships with international OEMs, consolidate our domestic supply chains, introduce key defense technologies to the regional market, and further establish a framework to aid the growth and development of the Kingdom’s air, land, and naval forces. Ultimately, we are working to meet the Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 defense industry objectives. This will continue to be our pri-mary focus for the coming few years.

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