Paolo Messa is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He currently serves as Executive Vice President, Geo Strategic Relations, at Leonardo US Corporation. Previously, Messa served as the director of the Center for American Studies, an institute based in Rome and supervised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the US Mission to Italy.

Messa is a member of the Strategic Committee at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He founded and still publishes the editorial project “Formiche” which includes the magazines Formiche and Airpress—focused on the aerospace and defense sector—and the press agency Cyber Affairs.
Messa is an adjunct professor at the Business School of LUISS University in Rome. He lectures on “Intelligence and Media” at many of Italy’s universities. He is a well-known expert on international relations as well as on political communication.

Messa has been a member of the board of Italian public TV and radio broadcaster RAI and he has been communication adviser to Italy’s vice prime minister as well as to Italy’s minister for the environment.