Faisal Saeed Al Mutar

Faisal was born in Babylon and raised in Baghdad, in a family where curiosity was the house rule. His father was an orthopedic surgeon and his mother a lawyer, and dinner meant grilled chicken and kebabs alongside a debate on science, philosophy and literature. His father’s favorite line to him: “Faisal, just because I’m your dad doesn’t mean I’m right.” Critical thinking started right there.

As a teenager he faced a choice, to be part of the problem or part of the solution, and he chose the solution. He began by speaking out against extremists who wanted to divide neighbors, and joined a youth movement on the front lines of that fight in West Baghdad. He later left Iraq and arrived in the United States as a refugee, carrying the same conviction.

What he saw was that ideas were the missing infrastructure. As founder and president of Ideas Beyond Borders, he revived Baghdad’s House of Wisdom as Bayt Al Hikma 2.0. Readers from Iraq to Morocco to Afghanistan found it, and many wrote back with the same question: how do we put these ideas to work? That question became the Innovation Hub, a business registration reform in Kurdistan Region, and the work that followed.

Today he works alongside intergovernmental institutions, policymakers and private sector leaders to find solutions that scale in complex, diverse societies. He splits his time between New York and the Middle East, building institutions that transcend sectarian divisions and expand opportunity across the region.