Most Powerful Women In Technology

• Ruth Porat CFO, Alphabet and Google U.S.

• Safra Catz CEO, Oracle U.S.

• Susan Wojcicki CEO, YouTube U.S.

• Amy Hood Executive Vice President & CFO, Microsoft U.S.

• Gwynne Shotwell President & COO, SpaceX U.S.

Porat has been chief financial officer of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, since 2015. In June 2020, Porat joined the board of Wall Street investment firm Blackstone.

Catz has served as CEO of software firm Oracle since September 2014, when founder Larry Ellison stepped down from the role. She had a real-time net worth of $1.6 billion as of January 2023.

Wojcicki is CEO of Alphabet subsidiary YouTube, which has two billion monthly users. She was hired in 1999 as Google employee number 16, and worked on everything from AdSense and Google Analytics to Google Books and Google Images.

As CFO since 2013, Hood has seen Microsoft nip at Apple’s heels in the race to become the largest publicly traded company by stock market value. She’s helped engineer over 57 deals while at Microsoft, including the 2018 $7.5 billion acquisition of software development platform GitHub.

Shotwell was the 11th employee of SpaceX, and joined the company in 2002. Before that, she was at Microcosm, Inc. as space systems director. Shotwell owns an estimated stake in SpaceX of less than 1%.

Intellectual Property Protection: A Cornerstone Of The Saudi Knowledge Economy

When His Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Saudi Vision 2030 back in 2016, the main goal was to establish an integrated economic, political, and social plan aimed at bringing about national transformation at all levels. In the following years, it became clear that the shift towards a knowledgebased economy was at the forefront of that vision.

However, in building a knowledgebased economy, there are many issues to consider, with intellectual property (IP) prime among them. With this in mind, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has launched the National IP Strategy (NIPST) and the government intends to take other important steps to create a suitable environment for the protection of IP rights, attract investors, and accumulate valuable experience.

The history of IP legislation in Saudi Arabia dates back to 1939, when the first Saudi IP law on distinctive signs was issued. Decades later, in 1982, the kingdom joined the World Intellectual Property Organization and signed a number of international treaties. Since then, Saudi Arabia has agreed to join other international agreements that support the IP process and encourage progress on related global indicators. Due to this proactive approach, the kingdom has advanced 20 places since 2021 to rank 24th on the Global Digital Competitiveness Index. It has also risen four ranks on the Global Competitiveness Report’s Intellectual Property Protection Index.

Further illustrating the kingdom’s commitment to the issue of IP, the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) was established in 2018. As the sole authority concerned with IP in Saudi Arabia, SAIP organizes, supports, develops, sponsors, protects, and enforces intellectual property nationwide, in accordance with international best practices. SAIP also focuses on promoting innovation and improving the competitiveness of the national economy by supporting local companies in their strategic use of IP.

Within its remit, the authority covers eight strategic areas, including preparing NIPST and following up on its implementation, updating IP systems and their regulations, providing related products and services with efficiency and high quality, and raising awareness of IP rights, among others. Furthermore, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, SAIP recently announced the launch of a project to include IP in school curricula. The aim of the project is to promote innovation and creative thinking, and to develop the knowledge, values, and skills necessary to enable students to preserve the moral and material rights of creators. It is also designed to enhance awareness of IP laws and their importance in supporting the national economy in accordance with the Saudi Vision 2030.

Underpinning these efforts is a desire to develop Saudi Arabia into a pioneer in the field of IP in the MENA region, while revitalizing the economy and raising the level of respect for intellectual property rights across the kingdom.