Mario Draghi

Mario Draghi Knight Grand Cross OMRI (born 3 September 1947) is an Italian banker and economist who has been governor of the Bank of Italy since 16 January 2006. He has been designated to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as President of the European Central Bank by November 2011.

In his capacity as Bank of Italy governor, he is 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 is also governor for Italy on the Boards of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank. In April 2006 he was elected Chairman of the Financial Stability Forum, which became Financial Stability Board in spring 2009.

Biography

Born in Rome, Draghi graduated from La Sapienza University of Rome under the supervision of Federico Caffè, then earned a Ph.D in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976 under the supervision of Nobel Laureates Franco Modigliani and Robert Solow. He was full professor at the University of Florence from 1981 until 1991.

From 1984 to 1990 he was Executive Director of the World Bank.

In 1991, he became director general of the Italian Treasury, and held this office until 2001. During his time at the Treasury, he chaired the committee that revised Italian corporate and financial legislation and drafted the law that governs Italian financial markets. He is also a former board member of several banks and corporations (Eni, IRI, BNL and IMI).

Draghi was then vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of the firm-wide management committee (2002–2005). A controversy existed on his duties while employed at Goldman Sachs. Pascal Canfin (MEP) asserted Draghi was involved in swaps for European governments, namely Greece, trying to disguise their countries' economic status. Draghi responded that the deals were "undertaken before my joining Goldman Sach and I had nothing to do with" them, in the 2011 European Parliament nomination hearings.

Draghi is a trustee at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and also at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C.. He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

ECB Candidacy

Draghi was frequently mentioned as a potential successor to Jean-Claude Trichet, whose term as President of the European Central Bank ends October 2011. Then, in January 2011, German weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported, with reference to high-ranking policy-makers in Germany and France, that it is "unlikely" that Draghi will be picked as Trichet's successor.However, in February 2011 the situation became further complicated when the main German candidate was reported to be no longer seeking the job, reviving the chances of the other candidates. On 13 February 2011 Wolfgang Münchau, associate editor of the Financial Times, endorsed Draghi as the best candidate for the abovementioned 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". On 20 April 2011The Wall Street Journal reported that "Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's finance minister, is open to Mr. Draghi for the post of ECB President". A few days later the German newspaper Bild endorsed Draghi by defining him the "most German of all remaining candidates". Contrary to previous reports about France's position, on 25 April it was reported that Sarkozy now sees Draghi as a full-fledged and an adequate candidate for the job.

On 17 May 2011 the Council of the European Union – Ecofin adopted a recommendation on the nomination of Mario Draghi as President of the ECB. On 24 June 2011 Mario Draghi's appointment was confirmed by the European leaders officially as new president of the European Central Bank. This occurred after he was approved by the European Parliament and the European Central Bank itself. Draghi will lead the Frankfurt-based institution when Trichet's non-renewable eight-year term expires on 31 October, and Draghi's term would run from 1 November 2011, to 31 October 2019. Though France long backed Draghi's candidacy, the country had held up the appointment toward the end, insisting that Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, an Italian official on the ECB's six-member board, cede his post on the board to a French representative. There were concerns that his past employment at Goldman Sachs would hinder his path to the position, although in the end this doesn't appear to have occurred.