Lorenzo Bini Smaghi – Keynote Speaker

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi is Chairman of the French bank Société Générale and was a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from 2005-11.  During that period he acted as G7 and G20 Deputy for the euro area and was responsible for its international relations

He is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Senior Research Fellow at Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome.  He is Chairman of the Boards of SNAM and the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.  Previously he was Chairman of the Board of SACE Spa, and member of the Boards of Finmeccanica, MTS, and the European Investment Bank.

He started his career as an Economist at the Research Department of the Banca d’Italia (in 1983) and became Head of the Policy Division of the European Monetary Institute (in 1994) and then Director General for International Affairs in the Italian Treasury (in 1998).

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), a Master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D from the University of Chicago.

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi is author of several articles and books on international and European monetary and financial issues.  He is currently member of the A-List of Commentators for the Financial Times and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and at the Istituto Affari Internazionali.