The 966 Lucien Zeigler and Richard Wilson

William Greene, MD, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of the Hevolution Foundation, joins The 966 to talk about Hevolution's investment strategy and role as an investor in the emerging field of Healthspan Science. As CIO, Dr. Greene oversees all aspects of Hevolution Foundation’s investment strategy, planning, analysis, and execution.
The Hevolution Foundation, based in Riyadh, is a non-profit organization that provides grants and early-stage investments to incentivize research and entrepreneurship in healthspan science.
Last month, Hevolution announced its first ever impact investment to catalyze the healthspan and geroscience ecosystem and drive transformative breakthroughs in healthy aging. 
Dr. William Greene’s leadership positions have included founder, biotechnology executive, investor, and clinician. As CEO, he built Iconic Therapeutics through discovery, clinical development and venture financing, leading to a successful sale of the company. He later helmed longevity biotech company Fountain Therapeutics and co-founded digital therapeutics startup Pear Therapeutics.
Dr. Greene spent 12 years at MPM Capital where he was a Managing Director and member of its Investment Committee, responsible for biotechnology and medical technology investments worldwide. He was also founding Chairman and head of the Investment Committee at the Global Health Investment Fund, a groundbreaking impact-oriented venture fund in collaboration with the Gates Foundation, which successfully scaled both investment returns and health impact simultaneously.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Greene was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and led clinical trials and strategy for a variety of therapeutic areas at Genentech.
Dr. Greene earned his BA from Wesleyan University and his MD from UCSF. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Yale and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney joins The 966 to talk diplomacy and U.S.-Saudi relations. 
In recent years, he was the Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of State’s training center, the Foreign Service Institute, where he had also been Dean of the State Department’s School of Language Studies.  He was Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2021, and earlier served on the faculty of the National Defense University.
Ambassador Ratney was the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria from 2015 to 2018, and also served as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Levant and Israel and Palestinian Affairs.  He was the U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem from 2012 to 2015, where he was responsible for U.S. relations with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem.  He has been Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Media, overseeing a network of State Department media hubs throughout the world, and was Spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

What is the state of the Saudi labor market today? How do Saudis find jobs, and how are young Saudis viewing their prospects in a changing and modernizing Saudi economy and society? Saudi labor market expert Dr. Hanaa Almoaibed talks with Lucien Zeigler about Saudi Arabia's changing labor force, the job market in the Kingdom, youth and employment, the embrace of technical and vocational training, women in the workforce, and so much more.
Before the conversation, Lucien's One Big Thing is *the* one big thing in Saudi Arabia for pretty much every citizen and non-citizen alike: Ramadan. Lucien shares his initial experience with Ramdan in Riyadh, his first despite being a long-time regular visitor since 2009 and now living in Riyadh. He discusses how his fasting is going and observations on how the city changes during the holy month.
Ramadan Kareem and a blessed holy season to all The 966 listeners and viewers. 

In Episode 125, the hosts welcome veteran columnist and analyst Hussein Ibish onto The 966 for his third appearance on the program to unpack the implications of Israel's brutal war in Gaza and the shifting regional and global power dynamics since October 7th. 
Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and is a weekly columnist for The National (UAE) and The Atlantic. He's also a former columnist for Bloomberg, regular contributor to The New York Times and The Daily Beast, and frequent contributor to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications.
Hussein discusses the war in Gaza and calls it a "savage war of vengeance" and the Biden Administration's response to it. He also talks about how the war has aligned the U.S. and Saudi Arabia's interests in forming a Palestinian state when the war is over and how the issue has brought the U.S. and Saudi Arabia closer diplomatically. 

Abdullah Alshamrani, General Manager of the Digital Entrepreneurship Center at Saudi Arabia’s MCIT join The 966 to talk ecosystem development in the Kingdom, the entrepreneurship scene, and the Kingdom as a future destination for tech.
The conversation comes as the Kingdom's flagship tech event, LEAP, is set to kick off in Riyadh in March.
He also shares his journey to becoming General Manager of Digital Entrepreneurship Center at Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, his time in the USA, and more...
The Kingdom’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology works to grow KSA’s digital economy and investment to make Saudi Arabia a global leader in the digital economy. 

The boys are back for their normal format and catch up on just some of the seemingly endless new developments and storylines emerging from Saudi Arabia of late. 
Lucien's "One Big Thing" this week is a first person perspective on living in Riyadh with his family during Riyadh Season, and all of the events, activities and other things to do in the Kingdom that make for an amazing experience for citizens and expats alike. Lucien notes that he's tried to attend every event possible, from sports to arts exhibitions to conferences and more. Formula E, Riyadh Season Cup,  World Defense Show, Diriyah Season, Saudi Ladies International presented by PIF, PIF Private Sector Forum, Formula 1, art exhibitions, tech conferences, AI events...the list goes on. Lucien notes that even with an active schedule he's been unable to see even close to all the things on offer in Riyadh, leaving him to draw the conclusion that the Kingdom is increasingly becoming a globally attractive destination for people looking for nice weather and a busy "high" season when cold winters plague other world capitals. 
The hosts jump then to Yallah! and offer a bonus two additional storylines, bringing the total to 8 this week. 
-Saudi Arabia has tapped an ex-Dell Technologies executive to lead the recently formed Public Investment Fund company Alat, an industrial electronics company with $100 billion in backing that aims to become a local manufacturing powerhouse. 
-Saudi Arabia’s budget deficit reached $21.57 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, narrower than the government’s previous estimates, as oil revenue dipped amid production cuts.It came as the kingdom increased its spending to boost the economy, the Ministry of Finance said in a budget update on Wednesday.
-Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States Princess Reema bint Bandar has addressed criticisms leveled against Saudi Arabia’s potential hosting of the Women's Tennis Association Finals. The ambassador's remarks came as a direct response to an opinion piece in The Washington Post, by tennis greats Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, which she described as laden with "outdated stereotypes and western-centric views."
-Saudi Arabia’s NEOM has opened its first US office in New York City, which will serve as a base for its business across the US. The announcement comes months after it launched its London office in November to serve as a base for its UK and European business.
-Saudi Arabia’s state-controlled Aramco announced it is pausing plans to raise its crude production capacity from 12 million barrels per day to 13 million barrels per day.
-Organized by Saudi defense regulator General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI), the World Defense Show CEO Andrew Pearcy said the biennial event held February 4-8 aims to “grow and support” an industry for which the government has budgeted $71.73 billion in 2024 – up from $69 billion in 2023.
-South Korea beat Saudi Arabia 4-2 in a penalty shootout to advance to the Asian Cup quarter-finals after a thrilling last-16 tie ended 1-1 after extra time at Education City Stadium on Tuesday. After South Korea's Cho Gue-sung equalised in the 9th minute of second-half added time to cancel out Abdullah Radif's opener, Sami Al-Najei and Abdulrahman Ghareeb had their penalties saved by Jo Hyeon-Woo to send South Korea through.
-According to a recent report from Knight Frank, Residential transactions, which accounted for 58.7% of all real estate deals by total value, registered a -16% fall in the number of deals to just under 150,000 sales between January and November 2023, according to global property consultancy Knight Frank’s Winter 2023/24 Saudi Residential Market Review report.
***