Introduction
Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud came to diplomacy late and from an unusual direction. For more than two decades he worked in Saudi industry and investment — most prominently in aerospace, as Boeing’s representative on the board of a Riyadh-based joint venture — before entering government in 2017. Within three years he had served as an adviser in the Crown Prince’s office and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as senior adviser at the embassy in Washington and as ambassador in Berlin, and had been appointed foreign minister.
According to Saudipedia, he is the sixth person to lead the ministry since its creation in 1930 and the third member of the Al Saud family to do so, after King Faisal bin Abdulaziz and Prince Saud Al-Faisal, who held the office for four decades.
Background
He was born in Frankfurt am Main, in what was then West Germany. The ministry’s own biography gives only the year, 1974; Arab News and Gulf News, profiling him on his appointment in October 2019, give the date as 1 November 1974. His full name, as written in the royal order that appointed him, traces his descent through his father, Prince Farhan bin Abdullah. This archive does not document private family matters beyond what the public record requires.
Diplomatic Magazine, reporting on his accreditation in Berlin in 2019, described him as speaking German “at a mother language level”; Saudipedia and Gulf News also record fluency in English. Early Life & Education sets out what is, and is not, documented about his formative years.
Education
Press profiles published at the time of his appointment — including Gulf News and the Al Jazeera encyclopaedia — state that he holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from King Saud University in Riyadh. No graduation year is given, and the ministry’s official biography does not discuss education. No source reviewed for this archive supports a postgraduate degree.
Early professional career
His documented working life begins in 1996, as vice-chairman of the Saudi Company for Maintenance and Operation. From 2001 to 2013, according to the ministry, he was Boeing’s representative on the board of Alsalam Aerospace Industries, first as vice-chairman and then as chairman. From 2003 to 2017 he was co-founder and chairman of Shamal Investment Company. In 2017 he joined the board of Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI), the state-owned defence company, and chaired its executive committee.
The detail of each role, including where sources disagree on titles and years, is recorded on the Career page.
Diplomatic career
His move into public service came in 2017, first as a senior adviser in the Crown Prince’s office and then as an adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was then posted to Washington as senior adviser at the Saudi embassy; most sources date that posting to 2018–2019, while Arab News dates it from 2017.
On 10 February 2019 a royal order appointed him ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, and on 27 March 2019 he presented his credentials to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace. He had been in Berlin for less than eight months when he was recalled to lead the ministry. The Diplomatic Journey follows these postings in detail.
The ministry
King Salman appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs by royal order on 23 October 2019. The same order relieved Dr Ibrahim Al-Assaf, who had held the post since December 2018, and named him a Minister of State. As a minister, Faisal bin Farhan became a member of the Council of Ministers. When the cabinet was reconstituted on 27 September 2022 — the order that made Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Prime Minister — he was retained as foreign minister.
How the office fits within the Saudi state, and who else shapes foreign policy, is explained on Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Major engagements
His first year in office was dominated by Saudi Arabia’s G20 presidency: on 3 September 2020 he presided over a virtual extraordinary meeting of G20 foreign ministers on cross-border measures during the Covid-19 pandemic. On 5 January 2021, at AlUla, he announced the end of the boycott of Qatar.
2023 was a year of re-engagement. He met Iran’s foreign minister in Beijing in April, a month after the agreement to restore relations; became the first Saudi official to visit Damascus since 2011; chaired the Arab foreign ministers before the Jeddah Arab League summit; and visited Tehran in June. In February he had visited Kyiv and signed US$400 million in aid agreements.
After October 2023 his diplomacy centred on Gaza and Palestinian statehood: he chaired the Arab-Islamic ministerial committee created by the Riyadh summit of November 2023; launched the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in September 2024; and co-chaired, with France, the UN conference on the two-state solution in July 2025. A sourced register is kept on International Engagements.
Foreign-policy context
A foreign minister implements the policy of the state. In Saudi Arabia, policy is set at the level of the King and of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and several institutions — among them the National Security Adviser’s office — conduct parts of it. The March 2023 agreement with Iran, for example, was concluded for Saudi Arabia by the National Security Adviser, Musaad Al-Aiban, not by the foreign minister. This archive therefore distinguishes throughout between state policy, the minister’s documented role and independent analysis; see Saudi Foreign Policy and Understanding the Role.
Current role
As of 11 September 2026 he remains Minister of Foreign Affairs. The most recent public engagements verified for this archive are talks in Berlin on 6 September 2026, where he agreed a strategic dialogue with Germany; talks with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on 8 September; and attendance at the International Space Summit in Paris on 10 September, on behalf of the Crown Prince.
Current to 11 September 2026