Damascus: A royal decree was issued by King Salman on October 23, 2019 naming Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud as the new Saudi Foreign Minister.
Born in Germany on 1 November 1974, Prince Faisal grew up in Saudi Arabia, where he studied business administration at King Saud University in Riyadh.
Between the years 1996-1998, he served as Deputy CEO of Saudi Co for Operations and Maintenance and in 2000-2013, as CEO for Al Salam for Aerospace Industry.
He also co-founded Al Shamal Company for Contracting in 2004, again, serving as its CEO.
After a successful career as a business entrepreneur, he shifted into politics and government work in early 2017, became adviser to then-deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Later that October, joined the Saudi Company for Defense Industries, becoming a Member of the Board.
From the Crown Prince’s Office, Prince Faisal became adviser to the Saudi Foreign Ministry in Riyadh, during a critical period in the war against Al Houthis in Yemen.
And during the years 2018-2019, he was senior adviser to the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC, working with Ambassador Khaled Bin Salman Al Saud.
Prince Faisal used his impeccable command of English and impressive following on social media networks to promote Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy, and at a 2017 event at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute, he was described as a “Twitter Star.”
In February 2019, he was appointed Saudi Ambassador to Germany, from where he tweeted—in German—that his new posting was dear to his heart, given that he was born in Germany.
Last September, Prince Faisal made world headlines after the Houthi attack on Aramco oil facilities, telling the Germany broadcasting station Deutschlandfunk: “The attack was an assault on the world economy…Iran cannot continue with its aggression.”
Prince Faisal is the sixth foreign minister in the country’s history, succeeding Ebrahim Assaf, who was named minister lass than a year ago, in December 2018.
While Assaf was in his 80s, Prince Faisal is a fresh young face, aged 45.
He is not the youngest foreign minister in Saudi Arabia’s history, however, as some media outlets have reported.
One of his great uncles and predecessors, ex-King Faisal Ibn Abdul-Aziz, assumed the portfolio of foreign affairs at the tender age of 24, back in 1930.
