The fastest-growing listed market in the region, with a codified independence requirement, a four-year board cycle and a Vision 2030 programme that has put governance capability in genuine short supply.
Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority sets a prescriptive corporate-governance regulation: boards of three to eleven, a majority non-executive, and independent directors numbering at least two or one-third of the board, whichever is greater. The 2022 Companies Law modernised the underlying corporate framework. With a large and still-growing Tadawul listed population and a national transformation programme that has created entirely new sectors, boards are recruiting for capability that in many cases does not yet exist domestically at depth.
Can a foreign director sit on a board here?
What you have to do
What actually gets in the way
Board composition
Each requirement is stated as arithmetic against the instrument that creates it, with who it binds. Nothing here is characterised as compliance or non-compliance — that is a legal conclusion about a specific company, and it is not ours to draw.
| Requirement | Threshold | Basis | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Board size | Between three and eleven members | CMA Corporate Governance Regulations, Art. 16 | Listed joint stock companies |
| Independent directors | Not fewer than two, or one-third of the board, whichever is greater | CMA Corporate Governance Regulations, Art. 16 | Listed joint stock companies |
| Non-executive majority | A majority of board members must be non-executive | CMA Corporate Governance Regulations | Listed joint stock companies |
| Audit committee | Three to five members including at least one independent director, chaired by someone other than the board chairman | CMA Corporate Governance Regulations | Listed joint stock companies |
Independence and tenure
Other tests
What a seat pays
Companies Law (Royal Decree M/132 of 2022)
The modernised corporate statute, in force since January 2023, governing company forms, board duties, and shareholder rights.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
CMA Corporate Governance Regulations · Art. 16
The board must have between three and eleven members, a majority non-executive, and independent directors numbering not fewer than two or one-third of the board, whichever is greater.
Capital Market Authority
CMA Corporate Governance Regulations · Audit committee provisions
The audit committee must have between three and five members, must include at least one independent director, and may not include an executive director; its chair may not be the board chairman.
Capital Market Authority
CMA Corporate Governance Regulations · Board term
A board term may not exceed four years, after which directors stand for re-election. Independence is reassessed on each cycle.
Capital Market Authority
Diversity requirements
How this regime map is maintained
Every requirement on this page is cited to the instrument that creates it, and the review date states when a person last checked it against the primary source. Nothing here is legal advice: rules change, and transitional provisions frequently apply. Verify against the primary instrument before you rely on it.
This regime map was last reviewed against primary sources in August 2026.
The demand thesis
This section is our reading of the market, not a statement of law. It is separated from the rules above for exactly that reason.
Why seats open
How you get in
What this market is short of
Most receptive sectors
Saudi Arabia feed
The same sourced stream as the central feed, isolated to Saudi Arabia. Every item cites the authority that made the change.
Article 16 of the CMA Corporate Governance Regulations sets board size at three to eleven with a non-executive majority, and requires independent directors numbering at least two or one-third of the board, whichever is greater.
Read the full itemLive seats
Statutory board seats, interim leadership and advisory engagements, on one board.
Saudi Arabia·Energy & Utilities
Cooperative or mutual energy and utility services organisation
Holding the deal thesis, the integration and day-to-day operating continuity together as one piece of work for 12 months: that is the brief for an Interim Chief Integration Officer at a member-owned energy and utility services organisation, with the Investment Committee as the reporting line.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Tourism and property organisation in Saudi Arabia
The committee role combines development-risk assessment with investment discipline. It asks whether a tourism or property proposal offers an acceptable return for its execution, financing and demand risks within the authorised investment mandate.
Saudi Arabia·Logistics & Infrastructure
Cooperative or mutual logistics and infrastructure services organisation
Every regional product and technology investment should be held to account for adoption, resilience and value. At a logistics and infrastructure services business that its members own, an Interim Regional Chief Product and Technology Officer will apply that standard for 18 months, reporting to the Technology Committee Chair.
Saudi Arabia·Healthcare & Life Sciences
Hospitality development organisation in Saudi Arabia
Candidates should have experience of property or hospitality joint ventures and be comfortable reading financial models, development reports and commercial agreements with specialist support. Cross-cultural board communication and the ability to distinguish negotiation positions from entity-level decisions are essential. Prior involvement in a troubled partnership can be valuable where the candidate can explain what improved governance changed.
Saudi Arabia·Business Services & Diversified
Non-profit business and professional services organisation
Value cases that can be checked, and stop rules agreed before anything starts, are what this 24-month seat exists to set for a transformation portfolio. The Interim Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation reports to the Regional President of a non-profit business and professional services organisation.
Saudi Arabia·Property & Real Estate
Hospitality and property investment organisation in Saudi Arabia
This seat focuses on how hospitality owners select, govern and, where necessary, challenge operating partners. The director must evaluate the relationship through owner returns, service quality and the practical ability to respond to underperformance.
Saudi Arabia·Telecommunications & Technology
State-linked telecommunications and technology organisation
Structural margin must be told apart from temporary price and volume effects, says the board of a state-linked telecommunications and technology business. An Interim Chief Financial Officer, reporting to the Board of Directors, will draw that line over 24 months.
Saudi Arabia·Technology & Digital Platforms
Enterprise technology and AI organisation in Saudi Arabia
The director will implement a group approach to cyber-risk management across businesses with different technologies and capabilities. The mandate is to make material exposure visible, clarify executive ownership and deliver a prioritised improvement programme. It requires implementation authority and operating accountability, not only the production of group policy.
Saudi Arabia·Property & Real Estate
Non-profit property and real estate organisation
Clear contractual authority, set while the organisation grows, is the 24-month task of an Interim Chief Legal Officer at a not-for-profit property and real estate organisation. The seat reports to the Regional President.
Saudi Arabia·Technology & Digital Platforms
Mid-cap listed technology and digital platforms organisation
An Interim Transformation Executive accountable to the Board Strategy Committee will hold, for 24 months, the decision on which initiatives are funded while capacity is constrained, at a technology and digital platforms company with a mid-cap listing.
Saudi Arabia·Property & Real Estate
Large-cap listed property and real estate organisation
The Interim Group Chief Legal Officer of a large-cap listed property and real estate group will answer to the Audit Committee Chair and lead the legal function through a 12-month renewal, including its approach to settling, defending or exiting claims.
Saudi Arabia·Healthcare & Life Sciences
Saudi family group preparing for a Tadawul listing
A family group intends to list and must move from family governance to a CMA-compliant board within the next two board cycles, including the independence and committee requirements it has never operated under.
Saudi Arabia·Logistics & Infrastructure
Mid-cap listed logistics and infrastructure services organisation
For a logistics and infrastructure services group whose shares trade on a mid-cap market, cyber resilience needs to follow what operations and customers depend on most. Aligning the two over 12 months is the brief of an Interim Group Chief Information Officer who reports to the Technology Committee Chair.
Saudi Arabia·Business Services & Diversified
Large-cap listed business and professional services organisation
Who can bind the group, to what and at what value? For 24 months an Interim Group Chief Legal Officer, answering to the Regional President, will put clear contractual authority in place as a large-cap-listed business and professional services organisation grows.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Hotel ownership organisation in Saudi Arabia
This board seat focuses on the performance of hotel assets over time: operator accountability, capital stewardship and the resilience of cash returns. The director must look beyond a favourable trading period to the expenditure and operating choices that sustain the assets.
Saudi Arabia·Property & Real Estate
Hospitality and property investment organisation in Saudi Arabia
This board seat requires an owner-investor's judgement over tourism investments. The director should examine the relationship between expected demand, capital commitments and operating capability without relying on a broad growth narrative as proof of individual asset value.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Tourism investment organisation in Saudi Arabia
Investment near tourism development can appear attractive because of expected wider growth. This director must test what the holding company can actually earn, fund and control, rather than accepting the surrounding growth narrative as an investment case.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Hospitality owners and tourism investment platforms
A hospitality investment platform is moving from individual acquisitions to a multi-asset portfolio. The board needs disciplined challenge of expansion economics, operator arrangements and capital allocation so growth does not outpace asset management capability.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Saudi entity within a national transformation programme
A new-sector entity is constituting a board that must satisfy the CMA requirement of at least two independent directors or one-third of the board, and needs governance experience of hospitality assets at a scale the domestic market has not previously built.
Saudi Arabia·Tourism, Hospitality & Entertainment
Tourism development organisation in Saudi Arabia
The director will challenge how tourism demand assumptions translate into development commitments. The central governance issue is the risk of committing capital ahead of evidence that infrastructure, access, operating capability and customer demand will develop together.
Mobility corridors
A corridor is a directional pair of markets between which experience is genuinely legible — and every one of them carries a friction, because a corridor with nothing to bridge would be a corridor nobody had thought about.
Adjacent Gulf markets building institutional governance on similar timetables, with overlapping investor bases and directors who serve in both.
Friction — Saudi board terms run on a four-year cycle with appointments clustering around the election, while UAE PJSC candidacy runs to its own fixed pre-assembly window.
Questions
Not fewer than two, or one-third of the board, whichever is greater, under Article 16 of the CMA Corporate Governance Regulations. The board must also be between three and eleven members with a majority non-executive.
Yes. There is no general bar, and foreign directors serve on listed Saudi boards. Some licensed and strategic sectors carry Saudi-national requirements, and regulated firms need SAMA or CMA approval, so the sector determines the route.
Board terms run up to four years, so appointments cluster around the election cycle. Joining mid-cycle normally depends on a casual vacancy being filled by the board, subsequently ratified by the general assembly.
ID Exchange of Saudi Arabia
The mobility index scores it against your own record across four named components — corridor strength, legal openness, what this market is short of, and the language its boards work in — and tells you plainly when the answer is no.