Speaker Bio

Paolo Gentiloni currently serves as Chair of the European Investment Bank Global Advisory Council and Co-Chair of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on the Global Debt Crisis. He is also a Nonresident Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe and at Università Cattolica in Milan. He served as European Commissioner for Economy from 2019 to 2024. Previously, he was Prime Minister of Italy (2016–2018), Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (2014–2016), and Minister of Communications (2006– 2008). From 2001 to 2019, he was a Member of the Italian Parliament, where he chaired the Parliamentary Committee for the Oversight of Broadcasting Services and served on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He was among the founding members of the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico – PD), serving as its President from 2018 to 2019. Earlier in his career, he worked as a professional journalist and was a City Councillor of Rome (1993–2000). Born in 1954, he holds a degree in Political Science from Sapienza University of Rome. He is the author of "La sfida impopulista" (Rizzoli) and a regular columnist for "La Repubblica".