Diplomat Alessandra Schiavo succeeded Alberto Cutillo: “This is Italy’s new ambassador to Algeria”
The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that diplomat Alessandra Schiavo assumed her duties on Tuesday as Italy’s new ambassador to Algeria, succeeding former ambassador Alberto Cutillo, whose mission at the head of the diplomatic delegation had ended.
According to Italian media reports, citing a statement from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (La Farnesina), Schiavo officially began her duties in the Algerian capital after a long diplomatic career in several positions inside and outside Italy.
The statement noted that she was born on October 12, 1969, in Naples, and obtained a degree in political science in 1991, before conducting research the following year in the Netherlands at Leiden University on the establishment of a European defense system.
She joined the diplomatic corps in 1993, starting her career in the Directorate General for Economic Affairs, within the External Relations Office of the European Union. Her first foreign assignments were between February 1997 and December 2000, where she handled media, internal politics, and peace talks with Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians.
In January 2001, she was appointed First Secretary for Commercial Affairs in Brussels, before joining the following year the Secretariat of the European Convention, as the only Italian diplomat within this temporary body that oversaw the drafting of the first project for a European constitution, parts of which were later adopted in the Treaty of Lisbon.
In 2003, diplomat Schiavo returned to Rome to work in the office of the Diplomatic Advisor to the President of the Republic, before being appointed Consul General in Hong Kong in April 2010, a position she held until July 2014.
After returning to Rome, she headed the Office for Relations with Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, within the Directorate of Political Affairs. Then, in January 2015, she was seconded to the Ministry of Economic Development as a diplomatic advisor in charge of foreign trade and investment attraction.
From July 2018 to May 2022, she served as Italy’s ambassador to Yangon, during a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the military coup in Myanmar.
Since May 9, 2022, Schiavo has held the position of Central Director for Asian and Oceanian countries, and also served as Deputy Director General, first in the Directorate General for Globalization, then in the Directorate General for Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania.