Michele Valensise

Michele Valensise is president of the IAI. From 2017 to 2024, he was president of the German-Italian Center for European Dialogue "Villa Vigoni", at the joint proposal of the Italian and German governments. His diplomatic career began in 1975 at the Farnesina, at the Directorate of Economic Affairs. He was later posted to the Italian Embassy in Brasilia and then to the Italian Embassy in Bonn. From 1984 to 1987, during the civil war in Lebanon, he was an adviser and chargé d'affaires in Beirut. In 1991 he was in Brussels as the first counselor at the Permanent Representation of Italy to the European Union. In 1997 he became ambassador to Sarajevo. He returned to the Farnesina in 1999, where he became director of Relations with Parliament and then of the Press Service. He has been Ambassador to Brasilia since 2004, to Berlin since 2009, and Secretary General of the Farnesina from 2012 to 2016.
He is a board member of several joint-stock companies and the Italian Environmental Fund, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Society for International Organization.
He contributes to newspapers and magazines on international politics.