01 · His Story
A grandson of founders, a student of the world.
Born in 1955 into two of the region's founding houses — grandson of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, who unified Saudi Arabia, and of Riad El Solh, independent Lebanon's first prime minister — he grew up between Riyadh and Beirut, studied in California and New York, and returned home to build.
Formation
The making of an investor
He crossed the world for his education and treated it like a race. At Menlo College in California he completed a four-year Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in two and a half years, graduating magna cum laude in 1979. Six years later — already running his own company — he returned to the United States for a master's degree in Social Science from Syracuse University's Maxwell School, completed with honors in 1985. The two degrees frame the man: the discipline of business, and the study of how societies work.
1955
Born
On 7 March, to Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz and Princess Mona El Solh.
1968
Two cities
A boyhood divided between the Kingdom and cosmopolitan Beirut.
1979
Menlo College
A B.S. in Business Administration, magna cum laude — finished in two and a half years.
1980
First venture
Kingdom Establishment opens in a small Riyadh office — the seed of everything after.
1985
Syracuse University
A master's in Social Science, with honors, from the Maxwell School.
1991
The Citicorp bet
A contrarian stake in a struggling American bank announces a global investor.
1998
Kingdom Holding
The enterprise takes its enduring name.
2002
Kingdom Centre
A 302-metre landmark rises on the Riyadh skyline.
2015
The pledge
A promise, in writing, to give his entire fortune to philanthropy.
Born on 7 March 1955 to Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz and Princess Mona El Solh, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal came of age between two worlds — the young Saudi Kingdom his grandfather had founded, and the Beirut of his mother's family, where his other grandfather had led Lebanon to independence. He earned a business degree at Menlo College in California, magna cum laude, and came home in 1980 with a modest stake from his father to open a small office in Riyadh. A master's from Syracuse followed in 1985. The ambition was set early: build something enduring, and give most of it away.
