The Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Jones Lang LaSalle Saudi Arabia Company Limited (JLL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at enhancing cooperation and supporting the growth of Saudi Arabia’s real estate industry. The signing took place during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh, reflecting both organisations’ shared commitment to furthering the development of the Kingdom’s real estate ecosystem, according to a PIF media release.

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Through this MoU, PIF and JLL will combine their extensive expertise to drive innovation, improve efficiency, and accelerate development within the real estate sector. The collaboration aligns with Saudi Vision 2030’s objectives to diversify the domestic economy, expand private sector participation, and enhance quality of life across the kingdom.

The partnership will focus on several key areas, including market insights, valuation, and project management. It will also work to develop local talent, foster skills transfer, and promote the adoption of new technologies to achieve sustainable and future-ready real estate growth.

Driving transformation and urban innovation

The MoU was signed by Saad Alkroud, head of the Local Real Estate Investment Division at PIF, and Sue Asprey Price, EMEA CEO and global head of Portfolio Services, Work Dynamics at JLL. The agreement forms part of PIF’s local real estate strategy, which aims to drive economic transformation, support diversification, and advance urban innovation, all in line with the ambitious goals of Vision 2030.

PIF leads the development of transformative giga-projects and landmark real estate initiatives across Saudi Arabia, positioning itself as one of the world’s most impactful investors. The Fund continues to fulfill its strategic mandate to achieve significant economic impact for the Kingdom while securing sustainable returns. Through such partnerships, PIF reinforces its role in driving diversification, enabling the creation of new sectors, and shaping opportunities that influence the global economy.

Shure MEA has unveiled its Experience Zone in Dubai, a dynamic and multi-faceted training hub designed to demonstrate how cutting-edge audio solutions can transform collaboration, government meetings, and education across the region. Opened in October, the facility aims to provide immersive, hands-on demonstrations in realistic settings, aligning with the Middle East’s growing appetite for advanced AV technologies that support modern workspaces, digital governance, and interactive learning.

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The Experience Zone places a strategic focus on three sectors driving the region’s digital transformation. In unified communication, Shure showcases seamless integration with leading conferencing platforms that enhance meeting efficiency. In government, the company highlights secure and resilient systems designed to ensure clarity and confidentiality for official proceedings and public addresses. In education, advanced audio solutions support both in-person and remote learning, promoting interactivity and accessibility in classrooms and lecture halls.

Immersive demonstrations

The Experience Zone features four dedicated demo spaces replicating real-world environments. Small rooms emphasize compact and easily deployable systems, while medium spaces illustrate scalable setups adaptable to organisational growth. Larger rooms highlight robust, flexible solutions that ensure comprehensive coverage, and the auditorium demonstrates high-performance systems designed for clear, consistent audio delivery to large audiences.

“The Experience Zone will demonstrate how audio can empower sector-specific needs. By immersing visitors in real-world scenarios, we’re not just showcasing products, we’re demonstrating how Shure solutions are shaping communication experiences,” said Antony Lovell, sales director, Shure MEA.

A regional resource for innovation

Beyond product demonstrations, the Experience Zone serves as a regional resource center for partners, customers, and IT decision-makers. It combines interaction with knowledge-sharing, reinforcing Shure’s position as both a technology innovator and a trusted partner within the Middle East’s fast-expanding digital ecosystem.

With Dubai’s reputation as a global innovation hub and the region’s rapid digital transformation, Shure MEA’s latest initiative underscores its long-term commitment to driving sustainable growth and setting a new benchmark for audio excellence in the Middle East.

Just like any other industry, the health and wellbeing industry has its trends, and right now longevity is the buzzword.

Leaders are obsessing over their biological age, tracking their HRV scores and discussing sleep optimisation as much as their company numbers.

Data is a critical tool in ensuring executives and entrepreneurs not only lead better but also live better. However, we strongly believe the longevity conversation needs a reframe.

In essence, we think longevity shouldn’t be a goal per se, it should be the inevitable byproduct of doing the right things in the present.

Just as importantly, adding years to your life means nothing if you haven’t added life to your years – the quest to live longer is a hollow one without a sense of purpose and meaning.

Fundamentals over fads

The lure of quick fixes is seductive for time-poor leaders, but the reality is that nothing beats the fundamentals.

How you sleep, eat and move will have a massive impact on your performance and wellbeing. Nail the basics consistently and you’ll not only be adding years to your life, you’ll be showing up better in the present – more energy, greater focus and feeling on your A-game.

Technology can help, but far too frequently leaders get fixated with the lure of cutting-edge tech and try to build on a foundation that hasn’t been properly constructed.

Data relating to factors such as sleep quality, heart rate variability, Vo2 max and grip strength can be hugely insightful in terms of determining healthspan and longevity, and the simple fact is that these can be positively influenced simply by doing the basics right on a consistent basis:

• Sleeping seven-eight hours nightly with sufficient deep and REM sleep, which is where the glymphatic system clears metabolic waste and tau proteins from the brain, critical for preventing cognitive decline
• Eating a balanced, whole foods diet rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals
• Exercising with both strength and cardiovascular training, as each triggers different neuroprotective pathways

What is frequently overlooked in the longevity conversation is the profound impact these fundamentals have on cognitive performance. For leaders operating in high-pressure environments, your brain is your primary asset (think of it as the CEO of the body!), yet to date it’s often the most neglected.

Consider what happens when you prioritise the fundamentals:

• Quality sleep enhances your memory and decision-making.
• Regular movement increases a protein called BDNF, which acts like fertiliser for your brain, it promotes the growth of new neurons (neurogenesis), strengthens existing neural connections, and protects brain cells from damage.to the brain.
• Proper nutrition provides the building blocks for neurotransmitter production, directly affecting your mood, focus and energy.
• Crucially these aren’t separate benefits. Better cognitive performance in the present naturally extends your healthspan because you’re maintaining the very organ that regulates and synchronises with every other system in your body. You’re not choosing between performing now and living longer – they’re the same investment.

Another hugely overlooked factor in determining longevity is social connection. The adage that ‘it’s lonely at the top’ isn’t just metaphorical, there are now a wide range of studies proving that loneliness literally kills.

Our provocation is that if longevity is your goal, taking active steps to build those connections outside of the workplace will constitute a far better return on your investment than jumping on board the latest trend. And as with all our recommendations, they have significant mental and physical benefits in the present as well.

So the great news is that all the evidence for significantly improving your healthspan and longevity is out there and you don’t need to be spending tens of thousands of dollars in that quest.

What’s the point?

But here’s where the conversation needs to shift fundamentally: what’s the point of living to 100 if those years lack meaning?

You may think of this as a philosophical question, but the evidence tells us that if you have a sense of purpose in your life you will literally live longer.

Research from Rush University Medical Center found people with a strong sense of purpose had a 44 per cent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Another study published in JAMA Psychiatry showed that individuals with greater purpose in life had significantly lower mortality rates, even after controlling for other factors.

The bottom line is that it’s become increasingly clear that our sense of purpose literally affects our biology.

Yet the modern longevity movement rarely addresses this. We’ve become obsessed with the mechanics of extending life while ignoring what makes life worth extending.

As philosopher Viktor Frankl observed after surviving the concentration camps: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

For leaders, this distinction is crucial. You’re already carrying the weight of decisions that affect others. You’re already operating under pressure. If longevity is just about adding more years of that same grind, why bother?

We advocate flipping the equation: clarify your purpose first, then optimise your health to give you more time to pursue it. Longevity becomes the vehicle, not the destination.

Your roadmap to living better (and longer)

So what does our version of a longevity roadmap look like in practice?

Firstly, switch off the auto-pilot and reflect on your relationship with purpose. Not the LinkedIn version where every leader claims to be making an ‘impact’, but the honest question: if you’re looking back in years to come what do you want your story to be? What do you have to do to close that gap?

If you’re struggling to capture this, one of the tools we use with our clients may help, which is the Odyssey Plan from Stanford’s Life Design Lab. It asks you to map out three different five-year scenarios: your current path, an alternative if that path disappeared, and a ‘wild card’ version if money and status weren’t factors.

The exercise isn’t about choosing one path – it’s about recognising you have agency, that your identity isn’t locked into a single narrow definition, and that there are multiple ways to create a meaningful life. The plan reflects what we can’t stress enough – that life is about the journey, not the destination.

Simultaneously, it’s about making those foundational changes that allow you to show up in the present as the best version of yourself.

The irony is that by letting go of longevity as a goal, you’re more likely to achieve it. By focusing on living well now, you’re essentially making deposits in a longevity account without obsessing over the balance.

Because here’s what the research ultimately shows: the people who live longest aren’t the ones frantically optimising every biomarker. They’re the ones who’ve found something worth living for, who maintain deep connections with others, who move their bodies naturally throughout the day, who sleep well because they’re at peace with their choices.

They’re not trying to live longer. They’re just living better and leading better.

Jason Leavy is the founder and chief executive coach, and Samira Cutts, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist and chief performance coach, at Prime Performance Labs.

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Global wealth creation is entering a structural realignment. The forces that shaped the past decade abundant liquidity, synchronised growth, and ultra-low interest rates have given way to a world defined by costlier capital, technological disruption, and diverging policy regimes.

For Gulf investors, this shift demands not only portfolio rebalancing but also a more profound re-examination of risk, resilience, and return in an age of geopolitical and macroeconomic complexity.

A fragmented global investment map

Global growth has become asymmetric. The US economy continues to outperform, supported by fiscal spending and consumer demand; Europe remains constrained by weak productivity and energy costs; and China is re-engineering its growth model amid property-sector headwinds. Emerging markets are equally divided -India and Southeast Asia benefit from supply-chain diversification, while others struggle with debt sustainability.

This fragmentation has strategic implications. Correlations across regions and asset classes are weakening, restoring the value of active management and regional specialisation. The post-pandemic normalisation of interest rates has also recalibrated risk-free returns: 10-year US Treasuries, once yielding below 1 per cent, now offer yields above 4 per cent, forcing investors to reconsider the balance between growth and income.

Technology as the ‘great disruptor’

Artificial intelligence, automation, and digital infrastructure are reshaping productivity, capital allocation, and valuation frameworks. Equity markets have already priced in an “AI premium” in sectors such as semiconductors and cloud computing. Yet, beneath the surface lies a wider technological diffusion: from energy storage and climate tech to tokenised assets and algorithmic wealth platforms.

For wealth managers, technology is not just an investment theme it is a strategic enabler. Predictive analytics and behavioural data now inform personalised asset allocation; blockchain is enhancing transparency in private markets; and digital-first platforms are redefining how clients interact with advisory services. The winners in this transformation will be investors who can integrate these innovations without losing sight of governance and long-term fundamentals.

Shifting investor priorities

Investor behaviour has evolved in tandem with global volatility. Across the GCC, a younger generation of wealth holders is emerging digitally fluent, globally connected, and purpose-driven. Surveys show that over 70 per cent of high-net-worth investors under 40 in the region now prioritise sustainability and social impact alongside financial performance.

This shift is reshaping product design. The earlier ESG wave often criticised for being overly thematic is giving way to quantifiable impact investing. Investors are demanding evidence of measurable returns from green infrastructure, renewable energy, and social-housing funds. Family offices are aligning portfolios with national transformation agendas such as Saudi Vision 2030 and the UAE Net-Zero 2050 strategy, creating a feedback loop between public policy and private capital.

The evolving wealth-management model

The future of wealth management will revolve around three imperatives: personalisation, integration, and transparency.

• Personalisation will deepen through data-driven advisory. AI-based modelling can simulate multi-scenario portfolio outcomes in real time, tailoring asset mixes to client objectives and liquidity horizons.
• Integration will bridge public and private markets. Investors are increasingly combining listed equities with direct stakes in private credit, venture capital, and infrastructure to capture differentiated alpha.
• Transparency will define client relationships. In a world of abundant information, the advisory edge lies in clarity – communicating risk, fees, and strategy outcomes with institutional discipline.

For Gulf investors, this evolution coincides with regional reforms that are strengthening capital-market infrastructure and encouraging onshore wealth management. The introduction of family-office regulations, fintech sandboxes, and sustainable-finance frameworks across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh signals a new era of investor confidence and sophistication.

Strategic priorities for the next decade

The coming years will reward strategic agility. Three priorities stand out:

1. Rebalance toward tangible assets and private markets. Infrastructure, logistics, and energy transition projects offer inflation protection and long-duration visibility — key in a higher-rate world.
2. Embed optionality in portfolio design. Liquidity buffers and flexible mandates enable investors to reposition quickly as macro conditions evolve.
3. Reframe sustainability as alpha, not altruism. Decarbonisation and resource efficiency are not peripheral themes; they represent the next structural growth frontier.

From capital preservation to capital purpose

The decade ahead will be defined by how effectively investors translate uncertainty into strategy. Wealth creation will depend less on passive exposure and more on insight — understanding where structural growth will emerge and how to capture it responsibly.

For the Gulf’s investors, the opportunity is twofold: to deploy capital globally with precision, and to anchor it locally in alignment with the region’s transformation agendas. The integration of technology, sustainability, and disciplined diversification will define the next generation of successful portfolios.

In this multi-polar world, wealth management is no longer just about preservation it is about purpose, adaptability, and informed conviction.

The writer is the CEO, EMEA at Klay Group.