The Diplomat
Ambassador Riccardo Guariglia has been appointed Secretary General of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the proposal of the Vice-President of the Italian government and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani. The diplomat will succeed Ettore Sequi, former chief of staff to minister Luigi Di Maio in the second government of Giuseppe Conte.
According to the website ‘Formiche’, with this appointment “the Farnesina of minister Tajani, who in recent weeks chose as head and deputy head of cabinet, respectively, Francesco Genuardi, former ambassador to Brussels and consul general in New York, and Cecilia Piccioni, former ambassador to Vietnam, with experience in the United Nations in New York and Washington”, begins to take shape.
Guariglia, who has been at the head of the Italian Embassy in Spain since October 2019, will bid farewell to his collaborators and friends on 15 February at a reception to be held at the Italian diplomatic headquarters in Madrid.
Riccardo Guariglia was born in Chicago (United States) on 29 March 1961 into a Neapolitan family. With a degree in economics and commerce, he entered the diplomatic service in 1985. His first postings abroad took him to Cairo (1989-1992) and Brussels (1992-1996). He was Deputy Head of the Balkans Desk in the Ministry’s Directorate-General for Political Affairs (1996-2000). He returned to Brussels as Head of Operations Management, Balkan Crisis and Mediterranean Dialogue at the Permanent Representation to NATO (2000-2004). He was Minister Counsellor at the Embassy in Brasilia (2004-2008) and Deputy Director General for the European Union (2008-2011) at the Farnesina. After his time in Warsaw as ambassador (2011-2014) he was head of diplomatic ceremonial of the Republic under Presidents Giorgio Napolitano and Sergio Mattarella (2014-2018) and chief of staff to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Enzo Moavero Milanesi (until September 2019).
