Naif Al-Ajmi has been the head of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Compliance at Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority since July 2019. He is also the authority’s senior specialist and executive adviser.
He began his career as a legal specialist at the General Authority for Competition in Riyadh, where he worked from May 2006 to June 2007, before joining the Capital Market Authority as an inspection specialist.
In June 2010, he became the authority’s compliance and unauthorized persons unit manager, and then AML and CFT acting unit manager in January 2015, a position he held until July 2016, when he moved to Washington, DC to work as a senior financial sector specialist and legal expert at the World Bank Group.
Al-Ajmi attained his bachelor’s degree in law from King Saud University, Riyadh in 2003 and his master’s in international business law from the University of Central Lancashire, England in 2006.
On Monday, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) announced a national awareness campaign to help combat financial crime.
Al-Ajmi noted that several financial institutions were involved in the assessment process in order to shape a common understanding around risk and compliance.
“It is crucial for countries undergoing the assessment exercise to have efficient technologies for data generation,” he said. “This proved very helpful for us, especially with the time challenges and tight deadlines we had,” Al-Ajmi said.