DIRIYAH: “If the Kingdom started here in Diriyah, I want Zenos to be launched here — I want something authentic,” Zenos Health founder Mazen Karnaby told Arab News on Friday during the inaugural three-day Zenos Health Summit.
With the Diriyah district as the backdrop at the luxurious Bab Samhan Hotel, each of the three days was curated with a specific theme in mind. On the first day, it was “From Saudi,” on the second day, “To the World,” and on the final day, “To the Future.”
“The name Zenos (comes) from Zen: to bring back the balance of the body to a state of zen,” said Karnaby, who is originally from Lebanon. “I put an ‘os’ at the end just to make it look fancy, but it does not have any correlation with any Greek God, or Greek mythology… none of that.”
The Zenos Health Summit brought more than 55 speakers and wellness experts to the Saudi capital to ignite conversations and facilitate knowledge-exchange.
Founded in 2024, Zenos Health grew out of a deeply personal journey: Karnaby’s melanoma diagnosis in 2023.
“I’m in the medical field — a doctor of pharmacy for 25 years — so I was always on the other side,” he said. “So when I got diagnosed with melanoma, I was, like, ‘What’s going on?’ Like, ‘I don’t want to die.’ Because a woman that worked for me, her son, when I was diagnosed, was undergoing treatment for melanoma, and the poor guy ended up dying. So it hit more personal because I lived it through someone that I deeply care for.
“It activated something. I thought I was invincible before. Now I need to optimize my body and that made me get into (longevity),” he continued. “It started as just a personal thing for me but then it turned into an awakening and it turned into a mission. So now I want to (make it into) a movement.”
Regarding his choice of as the location for the first Zenos Health Summit, Karnaby said: “I came here in June for the first time and I fell in love with it. It was just the vision in my head and what I wanted to do with this summit. Recently, the country’s going through changes. We know that, before, it was very hard to get in. To get visas, we needed an invitation. So there’s a lot of curiosity about coming to Saudi. Saudi right now is the new golden child on the street. And (Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) is doing amazing stuff. Everyone is trying to come here.”
Did he feel the summit was a success?
““I wanted to bring the biggest minds from the West to really match them up with people that are here — the great minds from the East — and let them mingle,” he said. “From my perspective, I feel that we can always do better. We’re coming back to Riyadh, 100 percent. Most likely to Diriyah — we are in talks. We really want to do something bigger next year, way bigger, because we saw the appetite that’s here.
“The future of Zenos is going to be a 360-degree ecosystem, where we can take care of you mentally, physically, spiritually, and guide you to live a much better life, with quality, with meaning, with purpose,” he continued. “It comes with data, it comes with testing, it comes with clinics, it comes with supplementation, it comes with information.
“I’m super-happy that I’m here. I’m very proud that I picked Saudi. The level of kindness and support that I’ve been getting, and affection, and love, and acceptance that I’ve been getting, is making me feel like I’m at home. Yes, I’m Lebanese, but I feel at home in Saudi.”
And Saudis seem to have taken to Karnaby too. At the summit he was constantly surrounded by people wanting to exchange hugs or to take a selfie.
“Before Zenos, I didn’t even have an Instagram account, I lived a very quiet life,” he said. “Obviously things are different now, but I’m really humbled by this experience.”
