Mario Draghi

Biography

Mario Draghi was born in Rome in 1947. He graduated in economics from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1970 and earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, studying under Franco Modigliani and Robert Solow. He then taught economics at the universities of Trento, Padua, Venice and Florence, and served as Italy's executive director at the World Bank.

From 1991 to 2001 he was director general of the Italian Treasury, where he oversaw a large programme of privatisations and drafted the law that governs Italy's financial markets. After a spell at Harvard's Kennedy School he was vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International from 2002 to 2005. In January 2006 he became governor of the Bank of Italy, and he also chaired the Financial Stability Forum and its successor, the Financial Stability Board.

Draghi was president of the European Central Bank from November 2011 to October 2019. At the height of the euro area debt crisis, in July 2012, he pledged to do 'whatever it takes' to preserve the euro, a statement credited with calming markets, and he later introduced negative interest rates and large-scale asset purchases.

In February 2021 he became prime minister of Italy at the head of a national unity government, steering the country's COVID-19 response and recovery plan and signing the Quirinal Treaty with France. After coalition partners withdrew their support he resigned in July 2022 and stayed on as caretaker until Giorgia Meloni took office in October. In 2024 he presented a report on European competitiveness commissioned by the European Commission.