Elisabetta Belloni receives the Alumna Luiss 2024 award

The Board of Directors of the Luiss Guido Carli University will confer the title of "Alumna Luiss 2024" on Ambassador Elisabetta Belloni, Director General of the Department of Security Information (Dis), on 21 November, during the traditional ceremony dedicated to the graduate of the year.
"I am honoured to receive this recognition from my Alma Mater," said Elisabetta Belloni, continuing: "Luiss has been for me a highly inspiring training environment that has helped consolidate the dedication and rigour thanks to which I have chosen institutional commitment, which I carry out every day with pride and the utmost sense of responsibility. I dedicate this recognition to the new generations of Luiss students, graduates and undergraduates who, I am sure, will be able to successfully carry on the same values'.

Having graduated with honours in Political Science from the Luiss University in 1982, with a thesis in "Technique of International Negotiation" on conflict in the Persian Gulf area, Belloni boasts a distinguished diplomatic career that began in 1985 at the Farnesina, in the Political Affairs Directorate.
After various assignments abroad between 1986 and 1999, she returned to Italy where she held institutional roles of increasing importance within the Farnesina. From 2002 to 2004 he was Head of the Secretariat of the Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, then head of the Crisis Unit. From 2008 to 2012 she was Director General for Development Cooperation and, between 2013 and 2015, Director General for Resources and Innovation. Promoted to Ranking Ambassador in 2014, the following year she took up the post of Head of Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. From 2016 to 2021 she was Secretary General of the Farnesina and, from 2021, Director General of the DIS, the first woman in a role of utmost importance in the coordination of national security. In March 2024, she was also appointed Sherpa for the G7 and G20.

Luiss President Luigi Gubitosi commented: 'Commitment, merit and contribution to the community. These are the qualities that have characterised Elisabetta Belloni's career since her university years and which have accompanied her in a long career, during which she has repeatedly broken the so-called 'glass ceiling': as the first female Secretary General of the Farnesina and, now, at the head of the DIS. At every stage of her career, she has put her professionalism at the service of the State with loyalty and a sense of the institutions. This recognition is a way of thanking her on behalf of the entire Luiss community, whose values she perfectly interprets'.