DUBAI: Semafor has appointed Matthew Martin as its Saudi Arabia bureau chief and global head of sovereign wealth fund coverage as the news platform expands its Gulf edition.
He will head the growing team in Riyadh and be a part of the wider editorial staff led by Semafor Gulf editor Mohammed Sergie.
Martin, who has over two decades of journalistic experience, was most recently Bloomberg’s chief correspondent for SWFs in the Middle East and North Africa region.
His focus was the role of SWFs in promoting local economies, diversification, investing for a post-oil future, and projecting soft power internationally.
Prior to this, he served as Bloomberg’s Saudi Arabia bureau chief and was responsible for the network’s coverage of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen.
He has been with Bloomberg since 2013, and moved from Dubai to Riyadh in January 2021, where his reporting focused on Saudi Arabia, particularly Aramco and the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund.
“Matt is the definitive reporter on one of the world’s biggest stories, Saudi Arabia’s transformation of itself and much of the world around it,” said Ben Smith, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semafor.
Martin’s appointment “marks a major step forward in Semafor’s ambition to become the leading global media presence in the Gulf,” said Justin Smith, co-founder and CEO of Semafor (no relation to Ben).
He added: “We are not just covering the region but also how the ascendant Gulf story relates to the key corridors of US power and influence — Washington D.C., Wall Street and Silicon Valley — as well as the emerging ties between the Gulf and the African continent through collaborations with our Semafor Africa edition.”
As Semafor continues to expand, its reporting will soon “closely track Gulf-Asia and Gulf-EU corridors of influence as well,” Justin Smith said.
Semafor Gulf launched in September 2024, marking the firm’s third edition, joining its US and sub-Saharan Africa newsletters.
Since then, the platform’s reporting has included the UAE’s plan to invest $1.4 trillion in the US, the state of foreign consulting in Saudi Arabia, OPEC+ strategy, and Gulf-Israel relations.
