Hamed Merah is the CEO of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration (SCCA), a position he has held since March 2018. Merah studied at the Higher Judicial Institute of Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh, where he received an MSc and a Ph.D. He has also acquired professional certificates in compliance, governance, capital market and insurance. Merah began his professional career as a Shariah board secretariat department manager at Bank Al-Bilad in 2004, before joining Jadwa Investment in 2009 as an investment banking associate.  In 2011, he joined Solidarity Saudi Takaful Co. as the Shariah affairs manager, a position he held for a year before being promoted to the position of Shariah compliance consultant. In 2014, he became secretary-general of the accounting and auditing organization for Islamic financial institutions, before joining SCCA in 2018. On Thursday, the SCCA announced the signing of a new cooperation agreement with the International Center for Dispute Settlement (ICDR) in New York. The agreement was signed by Merah and Eric P. Tuchmann, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and its international division, the ICDR. This agreement will, according to a statement, “intensify the efforts and activities related to the promotion of the commercial arbitration industry in the Kingdom, linking the achievements of SCCA with the objectives of the National Transformation Program 2020 and Saudi Vision 2030.”