Paolo Messa is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. He was the chairman of the board of directors of Leonardo US Corporation, Inc and executive vice president for geostrategic relations.

In 2018, Messa joined Leonardo SpA, a leading global aerospace and defense company, and oversaw Italian institutional relations on behalf of the company.
Prior to Leonardo SpA, he served as the executive director of the Center for American Studies, an Italian-based institution out of Rome that is supervised by the Embassy of the United States to Italy.

From 2015 to 2017, he served on the board of Rai SpA, the national public broadcasting company of Italy, as well as Conai, Italy’s largest packaging and packaging waste management consortium with more than 850,000 membership companies, from 2014 to 2020.

Messa holds memberships with other influential think tanks including the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the International Affairs Institute (IAI).

He has a deep background in communication, serving as a senior advisor for various aspects of Italian government including the Invimit Sgr (Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance), the Minister of the Environment, and the Deputy Prime Minister. From 2001 to 2006, he was the Chief of the UDC Party’s Communication.

In 2004, he founded Formiche, a widely respected media project that includes daily online articles, a monthly magazine on foreign policy, the economy and culture and other related publications.

He holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Bari in Italy, has taught in several influential Italian universities including La Sapienza of Rome, and is currently an adjunct professor at the Luiss University Business School.

Messa is the author of several books and recipient of various awards.