Mohammed Bin Mahfoodh Al Ardhi is a former member of the board of directors of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is the executive chairman of the global investment group Investcorp, which operates out of New York, London, and Bahrain. Al Ardhi has been a member of the Investcorp board of directors since 2008. He is the chairman of the National Bank of Oman; a member of the advisory board of the Brooking Institution in Washington, DC; a trustee for the Eisenhower Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; a member of the Community Chairmen Group of the World Economic Forum; and a member of the dean’s council of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

A retired air vice marshal, Al Ardhi joined the Royal Air Force of Oman in 1978 and was subsequently appointed as chief of the Omani air force. In 2000, he was awarded the “Order of Oman” by Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Al Ardhi holds a bachelor’s degree in military science from the Royal Air Force Staff College in Bracknell, England and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University. He also graduated from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in the United Kingdom, and the National Defence University in Washington, DC. Al Ardhi regularly speaks on international trade, the relationship between the Middle East and the West, and the security of the Gulf. He is the author of three books: Arabs Down Under, Pearls from Arabia, and Arabs Unseen.