Majid Al-Hogail was named minister of the newly formed Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing following a royal order to combine the Housing Ministry and the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs.  Al-Hogail has been housing minister since July 2015, and chairman of the Real Estate General Authority since January 2017. As housing minister, he has led the effort to implement the affordable housing initiative of Vision 2030. He has also been the acting minister of municipal and rural affairs since February 2020. Al-Hogail received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from King Saud University in 1985. He also obtained a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998.  A year later, he did a US accounting fellowship in New Mexico. He completed an extended development program in management at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2007. Additionally, he attended a number of training courses, including plans for guaranteeing the foundation’s continuity in emergency cases, financing the agents and activating and integrating the finance administration with the stock market in Saudi Arabia. He was managing director of the RAFAL Real Estate Development Co. from August 2007, before joining Aljazira Capital in January 2014 as its chairman, leaving both in July 2015. During the same period, he was a board member of budget airline Flynas. Earlier, he served as deputy finance director at the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) from 1990 to 1998. Al-Hogail, who is a member of the board of directors at Qiddiya, NEOM, Amaala, the Red Sea Development Co. and ROSHN, has also been chairman of the Real Estate Development Fund since July 2015, and chairman of the Saudi Real Estate Refinance Co. since August 2017.