Marco Del Panta was appointed Secretary-General of the EUI in June 2020 and took up his position in January 2021. He assists and advises the President in all of the Institute’s external affairs and diplomatic matters, including relations with EUI member states, EU institutions and third countries. He also coordinates relations with the national and local authorities. The Secretary-General coordinates the EUI’s administration and deals with all tasks delegated to him in this regard.

Before joining the EUI as Secretary-General, Marco Del Panta was elected to the City Council and appointed as a special advisor to the Mayor of Florence. A career diplomat, he served most recently as Italy’s Ambassador to Switzerland. Previously, he was Director for Migration Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served at the General Directorate for the European Union of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in Brussels at the Italian Permanent Representation to the EU. Previously, he held diplomatic positions in Austria and Egypt. Del Panta taught a course on "European Governance and Decision-Making" at the University of Florence in the academic years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 and is a member of the Council of the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe in Lausanne. He is the author of several publications on foreign policy and on EU policies, especially in the field of Research and Development.

Martin Sarkis Essayan is the great grandson of the Foundation’s founder Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian. He was born in 1959.

He has been a Trustee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since 20 July 2005, taking over responsibility for the Foundation’s UK Branch and Armenian Communities Department from his father. Since 2022, he has been responsible for the Foundation´s grant-making activities. He is also a Trustee of the St Sarkis Charity Trust set up by the founder to support two of his creations: the St Sarkis Church in London and the Gulbenkian Library in Jerusalem.

He was educated at Eton (1972-77), Cambridge University (Engineering at Emmanuel College 1978-81), and Harvard University (MBA 1986-88). He worked for IBM as a Systems Engineer from 1981 to 1986 in London, helping major clients develop and implement IT solutions.

On leaving Harvard Business School, he joined the Boston Consulting Group where he worked for fifteen years (1988-2003), half of this time as a partner. He specialised in Financial Services and worked with many of the leading financial institutions in the UK, Continental Europe and the US, where he either led or advised teams supporting some of the largest successful transformation programmes in European Financial Services.

Until the summer of 2020, Miguel Poiares Maduro was a Professor and the Director of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute, where he continues to work as a Visiting Professor. From 2013 to 2015, he was Minister Adjunct to the Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development in Portugal. Until October 2009, he was Advocate General of the European Court of Justice. He is a Doctor of Law from the European University Institute (Florence) and was winner of the award for the best PhD thesis and best researcher of the Law Department at the EUI. He has been a regular Visiting Professor at Yale Law School, Centro de Estudios Constitucionales (Madrid), Chicago Law School and London School of Economics, He also teaches at the Universidade Católica and the College of Europe.

From July 2016 to May 2017, he was Chair of the Governance and Review Committee of FIFA. He has been honoured by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the Order of Sant'Iago da Espada for literary, scientific and artistic merit. In 2010, he was awarded the Gulbenkian Science Prize. In July 2023, he was awarded the Oscar Pomilio Forum Ethic Award and, in November 2022, he received an honorary doctoral degree from Keio University, Tokyo. His most recent book is Democracy in Times of Pandemic (with Paul Kahn).

Bernardo joined Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2021 as Project Manager for the European Media and Information Fund.

Prior to Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Bernardo gathered financial expertise working in Auditing, namely in investment funds, and in Project Management of EU Funded projects for the Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund (AMIF) at the Portuguese High Commission for Migration. Bernardo is an Economist who holds a Master of Science in Development and International Cooperation, both from ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management from the University of Lisbon.

Joana joined the European Media and Information Fund in 2022, as Project Manager for the Media and Information Literacy area of intervention.

Prior to Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Joana has gathered relevant experience working in the social intervention field - Migrations, Gender, Human Trafficking and Homelessness - in non-profit organizations and in local government as a Policy Advisor in Lisbon’s City Council.

Joana also has expertise in Media, namely working with the liaison between Portuguese Newspaper and Media Companies and European Institutions and policies.

Djau is currently concluding a postgraduate in Digital Technologies for Management at ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management from the University of Lisbon.

Prior to joining Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Djau worked for BNP Paribas for 4 years having been in the roles of Management Support Officer and ESG Data & Digital Project Manager. 

At the European University Institute (EUI), Paolo Cesarini is the Programme Director of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) and the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF) projects. An expert in Media Policies, Digital Single Market and EU competition law, Paolo Cesarini previously held management roles at the European Commission, namely at the Directorate-General for competition (DG COMP), covering both the antitrust and State aid policy areas, and at the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT), where he led various initiatives relating to the technological transition of the European media industry, the interdependency of societal issues and digital media, online disinformation and the innovation gap between research, technology and culture.

Before joining the European Commission, he worked as a member of the Legal Department at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva. He has also taught EU competition law at the Universities of Siena and Montpellier and is a frequent public speaker and author of various publications on EU competition and media laws.

Paolo holds a Master's Degree in International Law from the University of Siena and an LLM from the College of Europe, in Bruges.

Francesca works as a Project Associate for the European Media and Information Fund; she supports the Fund's management and coordination, internal and external relations, and organises events.

Prior to joining the EUI, where she is also involved in another project, she worked in consultancy, serving as Project Manager and Proposal Writer for international development cooperation actions funded by EU Institutions, UN agencies and development banks, among others. Francesca is a political scientist and holds a master's degree in International Relations with a focus on human rights from LUISS University in Rome, where she also worked on the design and development of research and policy development projects, consolidating her experience in the academic world.

Youssef Zeineddine is EMIF’s Communications Associate, having already demonstrated international experience working with non-profit organisations in Lebanon, Greece, Germany, Tunisia, Malta and Turkey. Prior to joining the European University Institute and taking on his role with EMIF in June 2022, Youssef served as Communications Officer for several organisations, including the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, UNDP, Lighthouse Relief and the Norwegian Refugee Council. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Advertising and Communication and a Master's Degree in Migration Studies.

Before joining the European Media and Information Fund in November 2022, Rolf Nijmeijer conducted doctoral research at the Department of Political Science of the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (LUISS), where he analysed foreign information operations on Twitter. With this background, and his strong interest in disinformation, propaganda and information operations, he helps to identify future project and research priorities for the Fund through the analysis of current trends in counter-disinformation. Rolf holds bachelor’s degrees in History and Philosophy from the University of Groningen, and a master’s degree in International Studies – European Studies from the University of Siena.

Claudio Mazzetti is the EUI Coordinator for Development, where he acts as a fundraising expert, with particular emphasis on his service to the Florence School of Transnational Governance and its flagship initiatives, such as EMIF. Previously, he was the team leader for research management at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSC) of the EUI, where he supervised and coordinated the work of the team of all RSC Project Managers (five PMs with almost 100 externally-funded projects per year) and directly advised the director on the centre’s overall fundraising strategy. In 2012, he was the Funding Manager of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the RSC and managed the CMPF’s activities and projects uninterruptedly from 2012 until 2023. He holds a Laurea in History from the University of Florence and a Master’s Degree in International Politics from University of Paris XI. He worked for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kosovo and for the European Parliament in Luxembourg. From 2004 to 2009, he worked in Brussels for a leading European consultancy firm, AESA, where he acted as Head of the Social Department. Since January 2010, he has worked at the EUI. Overall, he has more than 20 years of relevant professional experience.

Annachiara Zardini is a Fundraising Associate at the European Media and Information Fund. She works on the engagement of potential donors and conducts research into external funding opportunities. Before joining the European Media and Information Fund, she worked as a philanthropy officer at an international NGO. She has demonstrated experience supporting the coordination of projects funded by EU institutions, as well as partnership building, financial monitoring and proposal drafting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Social Sciences, a master’s degree in International Cooperation from the University of Trieste and a postgraduate specialisation in Latin American Studies from the University of Bologna.