Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo is a former ambassador and has held terms of office in Washington, Prague, Paris and Brussels. He has an extensive experience in European policies, aerospace, European structural funds, the European Space Agency, and international security. He has taken part and chaired a number of committees concerned with economic and industrial issues both in Italy and abroad, i.e., as Chairman of the Administrative and Financial Committee of the European Space Agency. In 1994 he was appointed as the Prime Minister ‘s of Italy personal representative for the negotiation of the Trans European Transport and Energy Masterplan. Since 1997 he has acted as diplomatic advisor to Professor Andreatta, Minister of Defense and his successors Carlo Scognamiglio and Sergio Mattarella, holding a frontline role during the Balkan crises. In 2000 he became a founding member of the Political and Security Committee of the European Union under the supervision of Javier Solana in Brussels. Between 2001 and 2007, Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo has served as the Deputy Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance. His mandate was mostly carried out in the strategic-political-industrial area, in relations with sensitive countries such as those in the Gulf and the Southern Mediterranean. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Finmeccanica, an international hi-tech defense and aerospace company and a member of the Management Board the Italian Space Agency. He has been a professor of European Foreign and Security Policy at LUISS University in Rome from 2010 to 2014. He is the President and founder, in 2011, of the NATO Defense College Foundation. He has published a number of articles and essays on Europe, the Atlantic Alliance, Foreign and Defense Policy and he is considered to be a leading expert in international security. He is the author of the books: “The road to Kabul. The international community and the crisis in Central Asia”, Il Mulino (2009) second edition in English in 2015 as an e-book), “A political journey without maps, diversity and future in the Greater Middle East”. (Rubbettino 2013), “Nato and the Middle East. The making of a partnership” (New Academia Publishing, Washington D.C. 2018).