Chairman of National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC
Sulaiman Al Rajhi was born in Al Bukairiyah, located in Al Qassim province in Saudi Arabia, and grew up in the Nejd desert where he and his brother Saleh began their business by changing money for pilgrims taking camel caravans across the desert to the cities of Mecca and Medina.
As of 2011, his wealth was estimated by Forbes to be $7.7 billion, making him the 120th richest person in the world. Sulaiman Abdulaziz Al Rajhi holds the largest individual stake in his family's Al Rajhi Bank, which has consistently reported the most profitable operations amongst all of Saudi Arabia's banking groups. The Al Rajhi brothers’ business growth and expansion was fed by the flood of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia during the 1970s oil boom.
The Al Rajhis helped them send their earnings home to places like Indonesia and Pakistan. His higher educational degree was elementary degree. He lives in Saudi Arabia and has at least 23 children.
The Al Rajhi family is considered, by most in Saudi Arabia, as the country's wealthiest non-royals, and among the world's leading philanthropists. He established the Sulaiman Al Rajhi University in his hometown, a non profit university. The university's main focus is on health and Islamic banking, but contains other faculties as well.
In May 2011, he announced he was donating most of his $7.7 billion fortune to charity.
He received the 2012 King Faisal International Prize for dedicating half his fortune to charity, starting an Islamic bank, supporting charity work and implementing effective national projects. A co-founder of the bank, with older brother, Saleh, he is currently the chairman of what is nationally recognized as the Tadawul's most venerable institution. In 1983, the brothers won permission to open Saudi Arabia’s first Islamic bank, one that would observe religious tenets such as a ban on interest.
