About

Dr Raed Al-Saadouni has amassed over 24 years of legal and business experience at reputable organisations and law firms. Al-Saadouni highlights his first in-house role, as general counsel for Arabian Cement Group between 2002 and 2011, as an important step in his career. ‘This move exposed me to a new industry and opened an important opportunity to work in GCC and Middle East regions rather than just Saudi Arabia’, he recalls. During this period Al-Saadouni planned and directed the legal, compliance, and legal risk management function for the Group and provided legal support on a wide range of commercial transactions including mergers, acquisitions and disposals, shareholders agreements, joint ventures, demergers and corporate restructurings and project financing. Al-Saadouni joined Airbus in 2011, when its defence operation was still known as European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS). He maintained his chief legal officer position for Saudi Arabia when the company rebranded to Airbus in 2014. In 2016, Al-Saadouni was promoted to head of legal and compliance for security solutions when the internal legal and compliance functions were merged. Covering not only the Middle East but Africa too, he has driven Airbus’ business practices to align with the legal and business environments in those areas whilst ensuring the company’s compliance to local laws and regulations. Highlighting the importance of the work carried out, Al-Saadouni says ‘the Middle Eastern countries face serious political and business challenges which at the end affect the legal environment. One of which is the new laws and regulations which re-engineer the business and require companies to change its internal rules in order to fully comply with these new laws and regulations’. Describing how he and his team overcome these challenges, Al-Saadouni says ‘we in Airbus legal make ourselves familiar with these changes, understand their nature and requirements and provide consultation to the management how to change the internal rules in order to comply with these changes’.