Dr. Ibrahim Babelli has been Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister for planning and vision realization at the Ministry of Communications and Technology since January 2021. Prior to that, he worked as a part-time adviser at the ministry from July 2020 to January 2021.
Babelli holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, which he attained from King Saud University in 1988, and a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Purdue University in 1992, where he also obtained a master’s degree in the same field in 1996.
Babelli has over 33 years of working experience. For 11 years, he worked in government research institutions in the Kingdom, the UK, the US and France. He also worked in strategic planning, implementation and consulting in the private and public sectors.
He founded and led the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy’s strategy department, then served as deputy minister of the Ministry of Economy and Planning for Sectoral Development from January 2016 to April 2018. He was a full-time adviser to the minister of economy and planning from October 2015 to January 2016.
Babelli has also served on the board of directors for a number of governmental and public authorities and businesses. He was also the CEO of SAMI Holding between July 2018 and March 2020 and worked as an adviser to the chairman of the board between April 2020 and January 2021.
Before working at the ministry, Babelli supervised the development and implementation of several national strategies and led the efforts that resulted in the establishment of the Saudi Authority of Intellectual Property, the Saudi Irrigation Organization and the Saudi Space Authority.
He directly led the establishment of the national center for strategic development and chaired the center in its formative phase.