As the GCC cements its position as one of the world’s fastest-rising markets for technology, capital and frontier innovation, Saudi Arabia has become the region’s gravitational center. Vision 2030 has not only accelerated sectoral transformation; it has reshaped what founders, investors, and operators now consider possible in the Middle East.
Against this backdrop, the upcoming panel “The Playbook for Landing & Expanding in Saudi Arabia,” hosted as part of The Doers Summit, the flagship gathering of The Doers Company, is emerging as an essential session for anyone serious about entering, scaling, and sustaining presence in the Kingdom.
The Significance of The Doers Company and Its Summit
The rise of The Doers Company represents a shift in the region’s innovation culture. At a time when conferences across the Middle East often default to inspiration-heavy programming, The Doers Summit was built with a different philosophy: execution over aspiration, operators over orators, and practical playbooks over polished platitudes.
The Doers Company positions itself as an ecosystem architect, a platform uniting founders, builders, investors, and doers who are actively shaping the next decade of business creation across the region. This is not a network built on motivational slogans but on the lived reality of building, scaling, navigating regulation, hiring talent, and securing capital.
The Summit mirrors that ethos. Its sessions are intentionally curated around tactical insights, grounded case studies, and the kind of candid conversations that rarely happen on traditional stages. By bringing together high-growth founders, regional investors, and operators who have successfully navigated the GCC’s most demanding markets, The Doers Summit has quickly
become the place where the region’s real working knowledge is exchanged.
This is what makes the Saudi-focused panel especially consequential. The Kingdom is shifting from being a “large market of interest” to becoming the anchor market, the proving ground where credibility is earned, strategy is validated, and regional ambition is tested. The Doers Summit, with its commitment to operational clarity, provides the ideal setting for unpacking what expansion into Saudi Arabia truly requires.
Inside the Saudi Expansion Playbook
At the helm of founder perspectives is Ali Abulhasan, Founder and CEO of Tap Payments, whose trajectory across the GCC has become a benchmark for how regional fintech can scale by embracing, rather than circumventing, the complexity of Saudi’s regulatory and commercial landscape. His experience underscores a reality few articulate publicly: infrastructure that performs in Saudi often becomes the default regional standard.
Alongside him is Richard Schrems, Founder of palm.hr, one of the fastest-rising HR-tech platforms built from inside the Kingdom during its digital transformation. palm. hr’s success across the GCC illustrates the strategic advantage of designing from Riyadh outward, where scale, policy momentum, and rapid adoption create a proving environment unmatched in the region.
But no examination of Saudi expansion is complete without the capital perspective. Hassan Bakkala, a Saudi family-office principal, offers insights rarely discussed outside boardrooms but deeply influential in determining which founders succeed.
“The founders who thrive in Saudi are the ones who treat landing as the beginning, not the finish line,” Bakkala notes. “Expansion here isn’t about speed; it’s about system-fit. If you understand how the Kingdom moves, it will move with you.”
This blend of pragmatism and expectation encapsulates the true heart of the conversation: credibility is currency in Saudi Arabia, and long-term presence outweighs short-term hustle.
Adding regional investor perspective is Johann Jenson, Founding Partner at NIAS.io, whose portfolio centers on scale-ups preparing for their GCC leap. He captures a broader truth driving modern venture thinking:
“Saudi is not a copy-paste market. If your global model lands unchanged, it won’t expand. Winning here means building with local exceptionalism in mind and respecting the region as its own innovation terrain.”
Together, these voices form a rare, unvarnished playbook, one shaped through pilots, pivots, procurement frameworks, Arabic localisation, regulatory negotiation, and the quiet work of building trust with Saudi institutions.
What the Session Will Really Unpack
Across the discussion, the panel will explore the operational pillars behind true Saudi expansion:
- how early partnerships unlock credibility
- how regulatory shifts can enable, not obstruct
- why data localisation and policy alignment shape product architecture
- how government engagement can accelerate momentum
- and why Saudi Arabia increasingly serves as the launchpad for broader GCC scale-up
Beyond technical lessons, the session captures a deeper truth:
The region’s next decade belongs to the founders and investors who understand that Saudi Arabia is not a market to be visited, it is a market to be built within.
And in a GCC defined by speed, ambition, and reinvention, execution is everything.
The Doers Summit, with its unapologetic focus on builders who deliver, offers the region a new kind of convening, one where real strategies are shared, real mistakes are analyzed, and real playbooks are written in real time.
