• Examples from other countries in the Gulf to serve as a comparison.
• The average salary for a Chief Financial Officer for a PRIVATE company is already known, so that should not be included.

Data Availability

• The initial round of research indicates that data availability surrounding the median salary is for the Chief Financial Officer of a PUBLICLY listed company in Saudi Arabia is non-existent when looking for precompiled lists that are publicly available.
• Data Availability is adequate when looking for lists of public companies in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia [KSA], and the United Arab Emirates.
• Data availability is non-existent to low when looking for lists of public companies in Iraq.
• We found the same kinds of median salary numbers provided in the chat transcript, though we want to note that none of those sources [including the one provided to us] specifically stated they were only for private companies and excluded public enterprises. Examples of the sources we found that offer the same data already found include this, this, and this.
• The only way to understand what the average salary is for the Chief Financial Officer of a PUBLICLY listed company in Saudi Arabia [as well as other Gulf countries] is to find a list of public companies within each country and then examine each company's filings to see if they are listing out separately what they are paying their CFO on an annual basis. If the public filings are in English, this is possible, though laborious. If the public filings are in a language other than English, we can provide the link to the filings, but Wonder does not translate, other than being able to use Google translate, which sometimes is not reliable.
• Our early findings and suggested scopings reflect all these facts.

Countries in the Gulf

• There are seven Gulf countries. These countries are: Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia [KSA], and the United Arab Emirates. We have listed these as examples from other countries in the Gulf were asked for.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

• Thirty public companies in Saudi Arabia are listed here. 
• Saudi Electricity's most recent annual report is from 2019. There is nothing available for 2020, as can be seen. The 2019 annual report can be accessed here. As can be seen on page 80, this public company does not provide what the CFO makes on an annual basis. Instead, they provide the combined remunerations of senior executives (Including the CEO and CFO). The figure they provide here is 14,070,218.71. 
• National Commercial Bank's most recent annual report is from 2020. Once again, all this public company does is list the combined incomes of six senior executive members, including the CEO and CFO which can be viewed on page 32 of the PDF [please note that the report itself lists this page as 60]. The figure they provide is 54,802 Value (SAR ’000).
• The 2020 annual report for Al Rajhi Bank can be accessed here. This public company lists the remunerations and compensations paid to five senior executives who received the highest remuneration from the Bank, including the CEO and CFO. The figure provided is 25,469,799. This can be found on page 65 of the PDF, but please note that the page number on the report itself is 124. It is noteworthy that the report does list the 2020 remunerations and compensations paid to individual Board members, Board committees, and the Audit and Compliance Committee. This can also be found on the same page.

Summary

• We spent 30 minutes of the first hour of research looking to see if there was any publicly available, credible source that listed the median salary for a CFO in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As noted in the data availability statement, there is nothing available. This meant we had to pivot to another research strategy.
• Faced with these facts, we went ahead and spent the last 30 minutes looking for a precompiled list of public companies in Saudi Arabia. Once we found that, we looked at the publicly available annual reports for three of these public companies [Saudi Electricity, National Commercial Bank, and Al Rajhi Bank] and provided the results for them. Each one of those public companies did not provide the CFO salary as a separate line item. This could mean that every public company in Saudi Arabia maintains the same practice, but until we look at each one, that is an unknown factor. We want to note that we spent a few minutes trying to determine whether this was a typical practice, in order to save research time, but we were unable to find a source that answered that question.
• Based on the data availability, we anticipate being able to scour the annual reports of public companies in each Gulf country to ascertain whether they list out the CFO's salary separately, should that be desired.
• **One notable exception is Iraq. We will not be suggesting research for this country as it appears there are not enough public companies to make that worthwhile. For example, Gulf Commercial Bank an Iraqi commercial bank that is a private joint shareholding company and the Industrial Bank of Iraq is also a private company operating within the banking sector. We did not find one public company during the initial hour of research.**
• We noted, just like the KSA, that United Arab Emirates had numerous public companies to choose from, so we are scoping that country separately from those countries that have more limited offerings.
• As a reminder, Wonder only uses publicly available sources to answer all research questions. We do not do primary research, and we do not have access to paid databases or paywalled reports, but we can cite them in research for reference only [in case purchase is desired]. If that is of interest, that would clearly have to be communicated to us in any reply. However, no indication of paid resources to add value to this research was seen in the discovery phase.
• It is of note that while the initial hour of research does not allow us to embed graphics and other visuals, we can certainly do that for any subsequent research projects that are selected. This will enable us to provide visual examples/graphs/charts to add color and depth to the research, if applicable.
• Please select one or more of the options provided in the proposed scoping section below.