Mario Draghi

Mario Draghi OMRI  Italian: ; born 3 September 1947 is an Italian economist, central banker, academic and civil servant who is serving as Prime Minister of Italy since 13 February 2021. He previously served as President of the European Central Bank from 2011 until 2019. Draghi was also Chair of the Financial Stability Board from 2009 to 2011 and Governor of the Bank of Italy from 2005 to 2011.

After a lengthy career as an academic economist in Italy, Draghi worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. throughout the 1980s, and in 1991 returned to Rome to become Director General of the Italian Treasury. He left that role after a decade to join Goldman Sachs, where he remained until his appointment as Governor of the Bank of Italy in 2006. His tenure as Governor coincided with the 2008 Great Recession, and in the midst of this he was selected to become the first Chair of the Financial Stability Board, the global standard-setter that replaced the Financial Stability Forum.

He left those roles after his nomination by the European Council in 2011 to serve as President of the European Central Bank. He presided over the institution during the Eurozone crisis, becoming famous throughout Europe for saying that he would be prepared to do “whatever it takes” to prevent the euro from failing. In 2014, Draghi was listed by Forbes magazine as the eighth-most powerful person in the world. In 2015, Fortune magazine ranked him as the world’s “second greatest leader”. In 2019, Paul Krugman described him as “the greatest central banker of modern times.” Moreover, thanks to his monetary policies, he is widely considered the “savior of the euro” during the European debt crisis.

After Draghi’s term as ECB President ended in 2019, he initially returned to private life. On 3 February 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Draghi was invited by Italian President Sergio Mattarella to form a government of national unity, following the resignation of Giuseppe Conte. After successful negotiations with parties including the League, the Five Star Movement, the Democratic Party and Forza Italia, Draghi was sworn in as Prime Minister on 13 February, pledging to oversee effective implementation of COVID-19 economic stimulus.

Early life and education

Mario Draghi was born in Rome in 1947 to an upper-class family; his father Carlo, who was born in Padua, first joined the Bank of Italy in 1922, and later worked for the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) and for the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro; while his mother, Gilda Mancini, who was born in Monteverde, Campania, near Avellino, was a pharmacist. He is the eldest of three children: Andreina, an art historian, and Marcello, an entrepreneur. When he was 15 years old he lost his father, who was born in 1895, and soon after at 19 he lost his mother.

Draghi studied at the Massimiliano Massimo Institute, a Jesuit school in Rome, where he was a classmate of the future chairman of Ferrari, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, and the future television presenter, Giancarlo Magalli. In 1970, he graduated with honours in Economics at the Sapienza University of Rome, under the supervision of Keynesian economist Federico Caffè; his graduation dissertation was titled “Economic integration and the variation of exchange rates”. In his dissertation, Draghi was particularly critical of Luxembourg Prime Minister Pierre Werner’s remarks that European monetary union was “premature”. Draghi went on to earn a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976, this time with a dissertation titled: “Essays on economic theory and applications”, under the supervision of Franco Modigliani and Robert Solow.

Professor and civil servant

From 1975 to 1981, Draghi was first Professor of Economic and Financial Policy at the University of Trento, then of Macroeconomics at the University of Padua, and later of Mathematical Economics at the University of Venice. In 1981, he was appointed Professor of Economic and Monetary Policy at the University of Florence a position that he held until 1994. During this time, he also spent time as a consultant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.. In 1983, Draghi was also appointed a counsellor to then-Minister of Treasury Giovanni Goria.

In 1991, Minister of Treasury Guido Carli and Bank of Italy Governor Carlo Azeglio Ciampi appointed Draghi as Director General of the Italian Treasury; Draghi held this senior position in the civil service until 2001. During his time at the Treasury, he chaired the committee that revised Italian corporate and financial legislation, and drafted the law that continues to govern Italian financial markets. Draghi was also among the main proponents of the privatisations of many state-owned companies which occurred in the Italian economy through the 1990s. He also chaired the management committee of SACE, implementing a complete reformation of the group and managing the transition from the Mani Pulite corruption scandal. Draghi returned to chair SACE between 1998 and 2001, before the subsequent privatisation. During these years, he was also a board member of several Italian banks and corporations, like Eni, Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and Istituto Mobiliare Italiano.

In 2001, he left the Treasury to become a fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Draghi was also appointed a Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International in 2002. He was also made a member of the firm’s management committee, holding all of these roles until 2005. He led Goldman Sachs’s European strategy and its engagements with major European corporations and governments. After the revelation that off-market swaps had been systematically used by the Greek Government, facilitated by Goldman Sachs, Draghi stated that he “knew nothing” about the arrangement, and “had nothing to do with it”. During this period, Draghi also worked as a trustee at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and also spent time as a consultant at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Governor of the Bank of Italy (2005–2011)

In December 2005, it was announced that Draghi would become Governor of the Bank of Italy. He officially took up the position on 16 January 2006. In April 2006, he was elected by fellow central bank governors to become Chairman of the Financial Stability Forum; this body would later be re-organised to become the Financial Stability Board in April 2009 on behalf of the G20, bringing together representatives of governments, central banks and national supervisors institutions in the wake of the financial crisis. As the inaugural FSB Chairman, Draghi was responsible to the G20 leaders, and worked to promote international financial stability, improve the functioning of markets and reduce systemic risk through information exchange and international cooperation between supervisors.

In his capacity as Bank of Italy Governor, Draghi was also a member of the Governing and General Councils of the European Central Bank and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements. He also represented Italy on the Board of Governors at both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank. On 5 August 2011, he made a contribution to domestic political debate when, together with the ECB President Jean Claude Trichet, he published a notable letter to the Italian Government of Silvio Berlusconi to recommend a series of economic measures that should urgently be implemented in Italy.

President of the European Central Bank (2011–2019)

Draghi had for years been mentioned as a possible successor to Jean-Claude Trichet, whose term as President of the European Central Bank was due to end in October 2011. On 13 February 2011, Wolfgang Münchau, associate editor of the Financial Times, endorsed Draghi as the best candidate for the position. A few days later, The Economist wrote that “the next president of the world’s second-most-important central bank should be Mario Draghi”. Draghi subsequently won the support of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for the position, who expressed a desire to see an Italian take the pre-eminent economic policymaking role within the European Union. On 17 May 2011, the Council of the European Union recommended the nomination of Draghi as President of the ECB. Draghi’s nomination was later approved by the European Parliament and the ECB itself, and on 24 June 2011 his appointment was signed-off by EU leaders. During the nomination process, some concerns were raised about Draghi’s past employment at Goldman Sachs. As a member of the Group of Thirty, founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, he was accused in Der Spiegel, Tagesschau.de and Die Welt of having a conflict of interest as president of the ECB. Draghi moved to Frankfurt and formally took up the role of ECB President on 1 November 2011, the day after Trichet’s term expired.

In December 2011, Draghi brokered a €489 billion three-year loan program from the ECB to EU banks. Draghi’s ECB also promptly repealed the final two interest rate hikes of Trichet’s term, stating this would ease the continuing European sovereign debt crisis. In February 2012, Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Joseph Stiglitz argued that on the issue of the impending Greek debt restructuring, the ECB’s insistence that it should be “voluntary”, as opposed to a default agreed by Greek authorities, would be “a gift” to the financial institutions that sold credit default insurance on that debt, a position Stiglitz argued was a moral hazard. In March 2012, a second, larger round of ECB loans to EU banks was initiated, this time called the Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO). One commentator, Matthew Lynn, saw the ECB’s injection of funds, along with quantitative easing from the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, as feeding increases in oil prices in 2011 and 2012.

In July 2012, in the midst of renewed fears about sovereigns in the eurozone, Draghi stated in a panel discussion that, under his leadership, the ECB “…is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.” This statement was heavily reported throughout the EU and the world’s financial markets, and initially led to a steady decline in bond yields (borrowing costs) for eurozone countries, in particular Spain, Italy and France. In light of what had been slow political progress on solving the eurozone crisis, Draghi’s statement has come to be seen subsequently as the major turning point in the fortunes of the eurozone, with numerous policymakers and commentators describing it as having been essential to the continuation of the euro currency. Draghi has since come to be prominently associated with the phrase “whatever it takes“.

In April 2013, Draghi said in response to a question regarding membership of the eurozone, “These questions are formulated by people who vastly underestimate what the euro means for the Europeans, for the euro area. They vastly underestimate the political capital that has been invested in the euro.” In 2015, in an appearance before the European Parliament, Draghi said that the future of the eurozone was at risk unless member countries gave up some independence and created more Pan-European government institutions. “We have not yet reached the stage of a genuine monetary union,” Draghi said. Failure of eurozone countries to harmonise their economies and create stronger institutions would, he said, “put at risk the long-term success of the monetary union when faced with an important shock.” Beginning in 2013, Draghi was criticised in the context of the scandals rising around the bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena which according to at least one German publication was making very risky deals.

On 31 October 2019, his mandate as ECB President expired and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde was appointed as his successor.

Prime Minister of Italy (2021–present)

Government formation

Between December 2020 and January 2021, tensions arose within Italy’s ruling coalition, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi taking contrary positions on the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy as well as its deep economic consequences. On 13 January, Renzi announced the resignation of the two Cabinet Ministers from his party, Italia Viva, triggering the collapse of the Conte Government. On 26 January, after days of inconclusive negotiations with political parties, Conte tendered his resignation as Prime Minister to President Mattarella.

On 2 February 2021, following failed consultations between parties to nominate a replacement, President Mattarella announced he would summon Draghi to the Quirinal Palace, with the intention of giving him the task of forming a technocratic government. The following day, Draghi accepted the task of forming a new government and began consultations with party leaders. Draghi quickly secured the support of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), the centrist Italia Viva (IV), the left-wing Free and Equal (LeU), and other small liberal and centrist parties. After an initial delay, Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League, and Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right Forza Italia, jointly announced they too would support Draghi. Finally, on 11 February, the membership of the Five Star Movement (M5S) approved the party’s support for Draghi, with 59.3% of party members voting in favour of joining the new government.

On 12 February, Draghi unveiled the members of his cabinet, which included representatives from all of the above political parties, as well as numerous independents and technocrats. The following day, Draghi was sworn in as Prime Minister. Draghi’s cabinet was described as a national unity government by numerous news articles in the wake of its announcement.

On 17 February, Draghi won a confidence vote in the Senate, with 262 votes in favour, 40 against and 2 abstentions. On the following day, he won a further confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies with 535 votes in favour, 56 against and 5 abstentions; this margin represented one of the largest ever majorities in the history of the Italian Republic. During his first speech as Prime Minister to both houses of the Italian Parliament, Draghi stated that the Italy that emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic would have to undergo a period of reconstruction similar to post-World War II Italy, and that it would be his government’s responsibility to begin this process. He also stressed that his government would adopt a strongly pro-European position, and emphasised the importance of Italy remaining within the Eurosystem.

COVID-19 pandemic

On 27 February 2021, among the first acts as new Prime Minister, Draghi replaced the Head of the Civil Protection, Angelo Borrelli, with Fabrizio Curcio. On 1 March, he replaced the Extraordinary Commissioner for the COVID-19 Emergency, Domenico Arcuri, with the Army general Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, who received the mandate of reorganizing the vaccination campaign. Borrelli and Arcuri were both considered very close to former prime minister Conte.

On 3 March 2021, President Draghi had a telephone conversation with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen giving priority to speed up the vaccines distribution to the population. The conversation also dealt with the management of the Next Generation EU, as well as a new Migration policy of the European Union.

Personal life

In 1973, Mario Draghi married Serena Cappello, an expert in English literature, with whom he has two children: Federica, who worked as investment director of Genextra Spa and board member of Italian Angel for Biotechis, and Giacomo, a finance analyst, who worked as an interest-rate derivative trader at investment bank Morgan Stanley until 2017, and is now at the LMR Partners hedge fund.

Draghi is a Roman Catholic of Jesuit education and is devout to St. Ignatius of Loyola. Draghi has homes in Rome’s Parioli district and in Città della Pieve in Umbria. He is an avid supporter of A.S. Roma, the football team of his hometown, and a great fan of basketball.

Public image

He has been nicknamed Super Mario by some media, a nickname that was popularised during his time as President of the European Central Bank, when he was credited by numerous sources as having played a key role in combatting the Eurozone crisis.

Honours

Italian honours

	Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic – awarded on 27 December 1991.
	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic – awarded on 5 April 2000.

Foreign honours

Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry – awarded on 19 June 2019.

Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany – awarded on 31 January 2020.

Honorary degrees

• Honorary Masters in Business Administration (MIB School of Management Trieste, 2004).
• Honorary Distinction in Statistics (University of Padua, 2009).
• Honorary Masters in Business administration (Vicenza, CUOA Foundation, 2010).
• Honorary Degree in Political Science (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli, 2013).
• Honorary Doctorate (Tel Aviv University, 2017).
• Honorary PhD in Economics (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, 2018).
• Honorary Degree in Law (Università degli Studi di Bologna, 2018).
• Honorary Degree in Economics (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2019).