Marcella Panucci

  • Chief of Staff, Minister for University & Research

After graduating with honors in Law from the Luiss-Guido Carli University, she furthered her studies at the University College London within the research program “The Role of Economics in EC Competition Law” and obtained a Ph.D. in “Discipline of Competition Freedom” at the University of Perugia.

Her professional career began at Confindustria in 1995, where it continued – with a brief interlude in 1998 at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission – as Director of Legislative Affairs until 2011. From November 2011 to July 2012, she served as Head of the Technical Secretariat and Economic Adviser to the Minister of Justice. In July 2012, she was appointed Director-General of Confindustria, a role she held until 2020. In 2020, she became a Consultant at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and Legal Adviser to the Minister of European Affairs. From 2021 to 2022, she served as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Public Administration.

She is a contract lecturer in Law and Public Regulation of the Economy and European Industrial Policy at the Luiss-Guido Carli University, where she previously taught Comparative Corporate Governance and served as Deputy Director of the Observatory on Intellectual Property, Competition, and Telecommunications.

From 2012 to 2020, she was a member of the Corporate Governance Committee of Borsa Italiana SpA, a board member of Sole 24 Ore, and a member of the National Council for Economics and Labor (CNEL). She served on the board of directors of Widiba Banca SpA, was a member of the Expert Group on Public Administration and Governance of the European Commission, the Management Committee of the National School of Administration (SNA), and the Advisory Board of Duferco SpA.

Currently, she is a Board Member of the Cotec Foundation, a member of the Reform for Resiliency Commission, and of the Scientific Committee of the Center for Advanced Studies for Defense.

She has authored numerous publications in the field of economic law.