Addressing critical needs: Inside the PIF sports strategy

Two of the PIF’s most senior sports insiders, Mohamed Alsayyad and Faisal Al Sabah, join the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast this week to unpack the latest iteration of the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s strategy for sports and entertainment.

Mohamed Alsayyad is Head of Marketing, Corporate Brand & Strategic Advisory at the PIF. He’s been with the organisation for over 10 years and has seen sport develop in importance across three different eras – and three distinct strategies. He now runs sports sponsorship activity.

Faisal Alsabah is his relatively recently installed colleague. He looks after MENA Sports Investments for the PIF, and spent time earlier in his career at McKinsey and the NFL in New York.

Mohamed and Faisal sat down to record this episode after a private media briefing in New York in September, where they were visiting the US Open in their capacity as major tennis stakeholders. The PIF is a sponsor of both the WTA and ATP and has an ATP 1000 tournament license it intends to use with a new event in the Kingdom next year.

The conversations explores the objectives of the PIF’s current sports strategy – clarifying the importance of the sector in the wake of this year’s release of a refreshed overall PIF strategy for 2026 to 2030.

This is the first episode in a new series of ‘Addressing critical needs’, a Leaders Worth Knowing show produced in partnership with the PIF.

The first series took a three-part view of the PIF’s sports sponsorship strategy and featured episodes with Alanoud Althonayan, Head of Events and Sponsorship at the PIF, Eno Polo, the CEO of the ATP, and WTA Ventures CEO Marina Storti.