Since 2012, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi has served as Director General for IB20 Group. Smaghi is a former member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank. He is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs. He is also currently Chairman of SnamReteGas, an Energy Company, and of Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, a mixed private-public institution which promotes cultural initiatives in Florence.

Before joining the ECB, Bini Smaghi was director general for International Financial Relations of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

His earlier appointments include deputy director of General Research of the ECB, head of the Policy Division of the European Monetary Institute (Frankfurt) and head of the Exchange Rate and International Trade Division of the Research Department of Banca d'Italia (Rome).

Bini Smaghi has published extensively in monetary and international economics and is the author of several articles and books on international and European monetary and financial issues.

He grew up in Brussels (Belgium), acquiring a knowledge of foreign languages at an early age. In 1974, he graduated from the Lycee Francais de Bruxelles.

In 1978, Bini Smaghi graduated in Economics from the Universit Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). In 1980, he received a master's degree in Economics from the University of Southern California and a Ph. D. from the University of Chicago in 1988.

He is married and has two children.

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