In 2014 I wrote a book, “The Saudi Kingdom,” that was, frankly, pessimistic about Saudi Arabia’s long-term prospects. After decades under a geriatric leadership class that had done too little for too long, I concluded with a blunt prescription: the Kingdom needed a strong reformist leader—someone willing to restructure the entire system, society, and economy. 

In January 2015, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud acceded to the throne and promptly empowered his son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), to launch a far-reaching program of reform. This August, MBS turned 40—having completed a decade in power since taking on core portfolios in 2015—and the Saudi Arabia of today is almost unrecognizable from the country I wrote about a mere 11 years ago.

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To understand the distance traveled, it helps to start with a personal memory. In the 1990s, when I was a banker living in Riyadh, sports for girls were banned in schools under pressure from religious leaders. I eventually pulled my 9-year-old daughter out of Saudi Arabia and moved her to Dubai so she could study—and play sports—like any other child. That painful choice distilled the limits of the old order: we were constraining half our population by misguided religious ideas. 

In 2017, MBS re-introduced physical education for girls in schools. What once forced me to relocate my daughter is now ordinary life for Saudi families. Public space has been re-engineered. The religious police—once able to stop, chase, and arrest people—were stripped of those powers by MBS in 2016, and the change in street-level atmosphere was immediate. Cinemas, shuttered for nearly four decades, reopened in 2018; now a weekend outing to the movies or a concert is unremarkable. 

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Travel to the country once limited essentially to pilgrimage and business travel, opened with a tourist e-visa in 2019 and has since become an engine of jobs and investment. In 2024 Saudi Arabia reported a record 30 million foreign tourists, part of a broader strategy to attract private capital into hotels, entertainment, and heritage sites.

Read More: How Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Consolidated Power

The most consequential shift, in my view, is the role of women in Saudi society. In 2019, MBS changed the........

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