Name: Sparking Cultural Creativity
Uploaded: 2025-05-21
Duration: 14 min 34 s

The creative economy is not just important for cultural vibrancy and quality of life; it also contributes substantially to global job creation and GDP. From balancing heritage with innovation to tackling concerns about intellectual property and fair compensation for artists, we’ll discuss the future of the global creative economy and how governments, business leaders, and individuals can help unlock cultural and artistic advancement. 

Sparking Cultural Creativity

Conferences

Welcome back everybody. I hope you enjoyed your lunch. Over the past few days we have listened to amazing musical performances, and some of us have visited the ruins at Daria or the Lion Culture Artistic hub. These experiences have given us a small taste of Saudi's rich heritage and culture, which is the topic of our next. Discussion. Her Royal Highness Princess Noura bin Faisal Al Saud is on a mission to support, grow, and publicize Saudi's creative industries with a dual goal of enhancing the lives of locals and diversifying the economy as part of Vision 2030. She founded the first ever Saudi Fashion Week in 2018, helped establish the fashion commission at Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Culture. And runs her own boutique culture and communications agency, Culture House. It's a lot of culture. She's a very busy woman. Please welcome Princess Noura to the stage. Entrepreneur, welcome to Most Powerful Women International. It's such an honor to have you here. Um, as we heard from Mihal, you are a woman with a very impressive and varied resume. Talk to me a bit about growing up, how you knew you wanted to become involved in the creative industries and fashion specifically. So, first of all, it's really good to be here and it's lovely to see all these women here. I was so impressed with the morning talks and uh honestly it's just an honor to be here with everyone. Um, on that front, Ellie, I think we had this conversation before. I mean, I never thought I would be in the creative world. Basically I'm not a creative. I look at myself more as a business person. When I look at things, I see how can I create impact through that. And what really drew me basically to uh culture in specific also fashion was because I lived in, in, in many other countries where I felt culture was a Way for us to speak to each other and to really culturally exchange between our cultures and have a dialogue. So I lived in Japan, uh, I studied there. I was also exposed to the culture there and that was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. In what way? It was really interesting in the sense that I, when I moved there, I did not speak the language. And then I had to learn it the hard way and to be able to really, really like dwell myself into that culture. I went to school there and learned the language and it was not a difficult, uh, sorry, it was a difficult language coming from, uh, I, I mean, I grew up speaking. French, so I'm French educated, so it's a completely different language. It's a completely different alphabet, you know, so it was important in order for um for me to be able to basically really experience the culture but also connect with people there. And that's how I see culture. I see culture as a creative, but also it's a bridge, and what I was so interested about is how to create businesses from that, how to grow creative worlds, how to make sure that it can be monetized, basically. So, uh, and let's stick on that point of monetization for a second. So right now the fashion. in Saudi Arabia contributes 2.5%, correct me if I'm wrong, to the country's GDP as part of Vision 2030, I'm sure many of you in this room already know the goal is to increase that figure to 3%. How is the government doing that? How is the country doing that? So obviously the efforts that the Ministry of Culture is doing is amazing in terms of not just looking at it on supporting the growth from a business perspective but also. Policy. When you have an infrastructure that supports the creatives and you put policies in place that really enables their growth and creates and supports their business structure that will help it grow. Give me an example of a great policy. So for example, if you look at the, uh, I mean the, the business world here in Saudi you have before Vision 2030, uh, designers weren't able to even register their own CR like there was nothing called the fashion business. Nothing. You had to create something to, to be able to work in that. So today, no, you actually as a designer, you can have your own CR commercial registration, you can also, uh, basically be registered as a fashion designer, so that as a job was not there before. Now it's there amongst other jobs within the fashion uh ecosystem. So what's good about uh what the efforts of the Ministry of Culture is that they looked at it from the full. Value chain and that's what I, when I was part of that when I built the infrastructure we looked at the strategy from the full value chain. We wanted to make sure that jobs were created across everything and then work on that from a policy perspective but also enable jobs and create opportunities for people. You have amazing talent graduating from universities here in Saudi. They didn't have a place to work. They didn't have anywhere to go. But they loved fashion. They loved the studying the creative, you know, uh, basically, uh, specialities, but they didn't have a chance to implement what they learned or to at least be creative, but then with the vision 2030, that was all looked at across all sectors and now you do, you have people working in all cultural sectors with. A profession that really represents what they want to do, which is incredible. How there's so much activity going on inside the country. How are you thinking about amplifying what's happening in fashion, say, globally, so that the world now knows to take Saudi Arabia seriously as a hub when it comes to the global fashion industry? So, um, I'll thank you for that question. I just met someone before coming into With the uh basically to basically to be here on stage um and um she, she reminded me of of the program that we did back when I was at the fashion commission and it was the first kind of initiative of its kind in Saudi. It was called the Saudi 100 brands which lives until today. So I remember when we first did it, um, the amount of creatives that applied, so in my database we had 500 designers. The applications we received were more than 1300, so that tells you the appetite that's out there and the potential of the creative industry, specifically when it comes to fashion. So it's something like this program that has started in 2021 and has lived on till today, enabling and supporting and, you know, supporting the growth of fashion businesses. Is what I mean, even participating in different countries now they're participating in Milan. They're participating in Paris. They're participating. They're they're even selling in different department stores around the world, and this is, you know, you started it with with the infrastructure and you build it right and then you let these kinds of programs like really move forward in the sense that supporting even more talent, making sure they're being mentored, exposing them, making them understand how business. Structures should be done specifically when it comes to the creative world. You can be a creative, but you also need support in knowing what does it mean to create a business around your creativity. Absolutely. So this is, this is the whole point of these kind of initiatives and programs. And what are the obstacles to this because as I said, so much incredible activity, but when you are essentially rolling out an industry on a completely new scale. Over the course of 4 years, it can't all go to plan. What are you finding both within the country and also externally and how it's being received or maybe some blockages? Yeah, no, of course, and I think until today it's not perfect. I, you know, we do receive comments saying, OK, no, there's, you know, you think you know things at the beginning and then you set this infrastructure and this, you know, you know, think, OK, this policy needs to be done, this needs to be done. We need to support their growth here, but then when you put that Into implementation mode, then you start to realize, OK, no, there's something missing here we need to fix it, but you'll only know if you do it. If you don't do it, you won't know. So this is the whole point of really, I think even at this point the ministry is relooking at the strategies for all the for all the commissions because 5 years down the line there are things that need to be looked at. Changed and reevaluated and that's how you continue and you create that sustainability around the creative world is that you continue to have in mind one thing I need to support the creative ecosystem. I need to create an infrastructure that supports them, and this is going to have to change with time and time and time, and we need to be agile and adapt to whatever it is. So if you don't have that agile behavior. I mean it's not gonna work. You mentioned how many jobs are being created. Um, I, I read a statistic which said, and it might have changed since I read it, that 320,000 jobs in the Saudi fashion industry now, um, many of those jobs are done by women, which is incredible. How do you think about ensuring that women at all levels of the industry are paid well, have great opportunities for progression, have good working conditions? Yeah, so I think if we look at Overall strategy of women enablement in the workforce that is just typically from a Ministry of Human Resources point of view and that really cascades across all sectors within Saudi and I feel like from there this is the most important thing is that women really feel like they can do so much because they have the support, but also there are systems in place that really support their growth in the sense that they're paid well. I think in Saudi women and men are paid um equally, uh, there's there's no like uh difference in salaries, uh, even in terms of the creative world, I feel like we see a lot of women that are in the creative world specifically when it comes to fashion, and a lot of people tell me this is not the norm in other countries. Let me tell you that is not the norm exactly. So basically it's really um uh providing, you know, uh an infrastructure that supports women, but also I feel like it's not looked at from the Ministry of Human Capital. As just one area or one sector, it's really looked at and I think we had panelists before talking about sports, so it's really looked at from a fuller and bigger vision and then how that really implicates across everything else. But again, I mean, you have universities here that teach fashion. Uh, and it's basically like really all women, um, students there, like girls, they're not, they're not basically like, uh, uh, that's how it was back in the days, but until now you see a lot of women really working in the creative but also specifically fashion. I have yet to see um a course being taken by men by men. But, but speaking on that note, uh, really there's huge support when it comes to women, and I mean you can speak to any designer and they'll basically tell you like, you know, they've seen the the change even across like the value chain when I talk about the value chain. Not just about the designer herself, it's the pattern maker. It's the prototype, you know, a product development expert. It's everything related to the retail retail is huge in Saudi and if you go to any like store you'll see all these women working. In in the retail sector, uh, and this shows you like, OK, there's opportunity there, they're happy and it's growing, and then now all these retailers are creating programs to support their skill levels in order for them to also grow from that. I want to ask you. A question on behalf of any young people we have in the audience or beyond this room who might be watching later. When we think about the creative industries as a whole, where do you see in Saudi Arabia the biggest opportunities right now? Where should they be targeting for their future jobs? So I think everyone needs to look at things from a very different, let's say lens or perspective, because when, when people think about a specific sector within the creative world, they think of it from the artistic angle. But what I try to tell people, I'm, I'm someone that is working in the creative world, but I'm on the business side, so there are so many opportunities, you know, creative. The creative ecosystem is not just about being creative. It's about understanding and creating that balance between creativity and business and how that can scale. So there's so much opportunity. You have people that can be like directors in fashion houses. You can see, like, I mean, if you just look at other brands around the world, look at their, their, their ecosystem. They have everyone across the full value chain working there, so there's So much opportunity and what I advise and maybe say to people is don't look at it just from that small narrow angle. Make sure you look at it from a bigger picture and that's where creativity comes from. Creativity doesn't just come from being artistic or creating something. It can also come from creating a new strategy or creating a different model or creating a genius financial plan that would, you know, support the business to grow. So there's so many ways to look at it and That's what I love to do. And just to end and sort of to go back to the beginning, you mentioned what a global outlook you have. You've spent time abroad for young people wanting to be, say, the director of a fashion house, young Saudi people, do you still advise them to go abroad and get experience, or should they stay in the country? Is there a very clear route to that here now in the country? What would your advice be on that? No, I think exposure and being in different places is very important. Uh, I, I really think you will learn different things and you will experience different things, and that's very important so that what you learn you can bring back to where you actually want to live, which is here if that's the place you want to live. But for me personally, I wouldn't have learned what I learned if I think I was just here. So be a global citizen be a creative global citizen. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you, thank you, everyone.