Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan has been appointed as the nonexecutive chairman of the Newcastle United board of directors. A consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), has clinched a deal to buy Newcastle United, the English football club, owning 80 percent of the $407 million takeover.
“We are extremely proud to become the new owners of Newcastle United, one of the most famous clubs in English football,” Al-Rumayyan, governor of PIF, said. “We thank the Newcastle fans for their tremendously loyal support over the years and we are excited to work together with them.”
In 2019, he was appointed chairman of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, replacing Khalid Al-Falih, who held the position since 2015.
Al-Rumayyan was appointed a member of the company’s board of directors in 2016.
Al-Rumayyan has been the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) since 2017.
He was appointed an adviser to the Royal Court in 2015 and is a board member at the US transportation network company Uber Technologies Inc. and the Japanese multinational SoftBank Group.
In May 2016, he became an adviser to the Saudi Cabinet, then a board member of the Saudi Industrial Development Fund.
Al-Rumayyan was the CEO of Saudi Fransi Capital LLC between 2011 and 2015 and is a former member of the board of directors of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul). He began his career at Saudi Hollandi Bank as head of international brokerage between 1999 and 2004, before joining the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) as the head of securities listings.
Al-Rumayyan received his undergraduate studies in accounting from King Faisal University in 1993 and completed his general management program at Harvard Business School in 2007.
