Mario Draghi

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Governor of Banca d'Italia
Mario Draghi

Incumbent
Assumed office January 16, 2006
Preceded by	Antonio Fazio

Born	3 September 1947 (1947-09-03) (age 60) Rome, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Residence	Rome, Italy
Alma mater	La Sapienza University of Rome, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Profession	Economist

Mario Draghi (born September 3, 1947) is an Italian banker and economist who has been governor of the Bank of Italy since January 16, 2006. He was appointed for a six-year term.

[edit] Biography

Born in Rome, Draghi graduated from La Sapienza University of Rome, then earned a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He was a professor at the University of Florence from 1981 until 1991. He was also an Executive Director of the World Bank from 1984 to 1990.

In 1991, he became director general of the Italian treasury, and held this office until 2001. During this time, Italy was shaken by major corruption scandals involving governnment-owned enterprises. Italian voters blamed a few influential politicians, but Draghi took the view that the risk was inherent in a system in which the state played a large business role. He advocated privatisation as a permanent solution, one that his academic advisers favored for efficiency reasons as well. Draghi was appointed chairman of the Italian Committee for Privatisations in 1993, and carried out extensive privatisation (totaling 108 billion dollars in market value) up to about 1999. Proceeds from privatisation helped to reduce government debt, and thus meet the Maastricht treaty's criteria for admission to the Euro. In 1998 Draghi was the major author of a law regulating corporate governance (including takeovers) in Italy, which became known as the "Draghi Law". Draghi joined Goldman Sachs as a partner in January 2002, and resigned in January 2006.

Starting in April 2006, Draghi has been Chairman of the Financial Stability Forum, an organization that brings together financial regulators and central bank officials from a number of different countries (the G7 countries as well as Australia, Hong Kong SAR, the Netherlands and Singapore).

He is a trustee at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and also at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C.. In 2007 he became a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.