Secretary-General Appoints Maria-Francesca Spatolisano of Italy Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced today the appointment of Maria-Francesca Spatolisano of Italy as Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.  She will succeed Thomas Gass of Switzerland, to whom the Secretary-General and the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs are grateful for his commitment and dedicated service to the Organization.

Ms. Spatolisano has 33 years of experience in public service, including extensive senior leadership in multilateral affairs.  She has served as European Union Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Monaco and Andorra.

She was also a member of the European Union delegation to the United Nations, serving as Head of its Economic and Trade Section.  She covered all issues related to trade, development and environmental policies in the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) and in the Economic and Social Council, also serving as the European Commission representative to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary).

Since 2017, Ms. Spatolisano has been responsible for international organizations and development dialogue with other donors in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation.  In that capacity, she has ensured the European Union’s presence and developed its positions on development policy in a number of international forums, including the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, OECD, Group of Seven and the Group of Twenty, where she represented the bloc in its Development Working Group.

Ms. Spatolisano holds a doctorate in law (cum laude) from Florence University and is fluent in Italian, English and French.

She is married and has two children.