Massimo Gaiani is a former Italian diplomat who attained the rank of Ambassador, the highest in the Italian diplomatic service, in 2020. He retired from the diplomatic corps in June 2023.
He is currently Head of the Department for International and European Affairs at the Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione (SNA) and, since September 2023, Executive Director of the OECD Centre for Public Governance, hosted at the SNA campus in Caserta. He also teaches at Link Campus University.
During his diplomatic career, he served as Ambassador of Italy to Türkiye (2019–2021), Director General for Global Affairs and for Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (2015–2018), and Ambassador of Italy to Albania (2011–2015). He was also Diplomatic Adviser to the Minister for European Affairs (2005–2011), while simultaneously serving as Director General of the Office for European Union Policies at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and Head of the Secretariat of the Interministerial Committee for European Affairs. Earlier in his career, he held diplomatic postings in Montreal, Brussels (at Italy’s Permanent Representation to the European Union) and Washington, D.C.