Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan was recently appointed chairman of the General Authority of Awqaf. The authority, according to the Saudi government website, is concerned with “organizing, maintaining, and developing endowments in a manner that achieves the requirements of the waqf and enhances its role in economic and social development and social solidarity, in accordance with the purposes of Islamic Sharia and regulations.” Al-Jadaan has been the Kingdoms finance minister since November 2016. He previously served as chairman of the Capital Markets Authority, chairman of the Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration’s board of directors, and special adviser to the board of directors at Morgan Stanley Saudi Arabia. He is also a qualified commercial lawyer and co-founded the law firm Al-Jadaan and Partners in cooperation with Clifford Chance. Al-Jadaan gained a bachelor’s degree in Islamic economics from Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University and a master’s degree in legal studies from the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh. He specialized in commercial law, financial market transactions, and directed a team of lawyers providing legal services in the fields of energy, petrochemicals, mining, water desalination, privatization and partnerships between the public and private sectors, project finance, and initial public offerings on stock markets. Al-Jadaan is also chairman of the Financial Sector Development Program committee, the Fiscal Balance Program committee, the Financial Stability committee, the board of the General Authority of Customs, and the Saudi side of the subcommittee of the high-level Saudi-Chinese Joint Committee.