Italy’s Ambassador Alessandro Cortese has been elected as the President of the IAEA’s 66th General Conference. Since November 2019, Ambassador Cortese has served as Italy’s Permanent Representative to the international organizations in Vienna.

Ambassador Cortese entered the Italian Diplomatic Service in 1986, where he initially served at the Secretariat of the Development Cooperation Department of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was then assigned to the Ministry’s General Secretariat in 1988.

Since then, Ambassador Cortese has held several diplomatic assignments: Head of the Commercial Office at the Italian Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa; Counsellor of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) at the Italian Permanent Mission to the EU; Deputy Head of Mission at the Italian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada; Diplomatic Advisor of the President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament; Permanent Representative to the Political and Security Committee of the EU; and Coordinator for the Italian 2018 OSCE Chairmanship.

In 1993, he was seconded to the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, where he worked at the Directorate for Political Cooperation and subsequently at the CFSP. In 1999, he was seconded again to the General Secretariat, where he served as Head of the Western Balkans Unit.

At Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Cortese served as Deputy Head of the Press Service, Deputy Director General for Political Affairs and Principal Director for Security, and Head of the Press Department and Spokesperson of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Ambassador Cortese was born in Rome on 16 October 1960. He holds a law degree from the University of Rome. He is married and has one son.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency