Gasem Al-Maimani has been the deputy governor for industry development at the General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) since July 2019. Al-Maimani gained a bachelor’s degree with honors in mechanical engineering from Dhahran’s King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, in 1989. After his graduation, he joined Yanbu Petrochemical Co. where he worked for four years as a project manager. In April 1993, he was promoted to a packaging superintendent and continued in the role until January 2000, when he was appointed as acting manager of the company’s polymers reaction unit. Four years later, he moved to Riyadh to join Saudi diversified manufacturing company SABIC as general manager of its polymers strategic business unit. Al-Maimani, who has held various top managerial positions, remained in his post for nearly eight years before becoming vice president for the Saudi National Industrial Cluster Development Program, a government-initiated scheme aimed at developing and supporting new industries. In February 2012, Al-Maimani was selected as the Kingdom’s deputy minister of commerce and investment. After 16 months, he moved to the Qatrana Cement Co. and was its chairman for nearly five years. In 2018, he became CEO of Taiba Investments, and was then appointed as GAMI’s deputy governor. Recently, GAMI confirmed that the Kingdom would increase its support for scientific research from its military budget to 4 percent over the next 10 years. Al-Maimani said that there were currently 30 military factories in Saudi Arabia, but he predicted that the number would increase over the next decade with 50 percent of the country’s military industries becoming nationalized.